


Bad Blood

by tawg



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Multi, sassy mini bang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-08
Updated: 2012-01-08
Packaged: 2017-10-29 04:35:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 70,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/315881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tawg/pseuds/tawg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a telepath isn’t easy. Growing up in Sioux Falls, living with family friend Bobby Singer and working at The Roadhouse, Sam Winchester has an uncomplicated life to balance out that annoying problem of hearing other people’s thoughts. But then an Other (one of the supernatural beings who had revealed themselves to the world some two years ago) comes into the bar.</p><p>Aside from being incredibly handsome and more than a little endearing, Sam can’t read the Other's mind <i>at all</i>. That bit of excitement suits Sam fine, but then dead bodies start turning up, some of his friends reveal secrets of their own, and Sam realises that he is not the only person with supernatural abilities in Sioux Falls. He’s not the only person who is now in a whole heap of danger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the [Sassy Mini Bang](http://sassy-minibang.livejournal.com/). Please check out the art masterpost for the fic [over here](http://m14mouse.livejournal.com/51970.html).

It was a Thursday when my life changed.

~*~

There’s a set of rules that hang behind the bar, next to the switch for the main lights. My boss, Ellen, had cut them out of the paper just over a year ago when the Others first revealed themselves. They sit crookedly in a cheap photo frame. Jo, her daughter, had stuck a piece of white tape below the frame, on which she’d written ‘Break Glass In Case of Emergency’. I work doing anything and everything in a bar called The Roadhouse, which is situated on the highway by the outskirts of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. I like this place well enough – I’ve never known anything different. But no one here was under any illusions that it would ever be important enough to have our very own Other move in.

But then, halfway through my shift bussing tables and mixing drinks, one walked right in. I heard the door open and someone enter, but there was silence where a new tangle of thoughts should have been. I hear people’s thoughts. I hate it, and I wish I could turn it off, and on my worst days it’s what I blame for the fact that I’m twenty four, never went to college, and work in a bar. Not that I hate my job, but who doesn’t want their life to be a little more exciting than that? But when I felt silence where there should have been noise, I jerked my head up and spotted him in an instant. At first glance there was nothing to set him apart from everyone else – dressed a little snappy for our establishment, maybe, but he had two arms, two legs, and a head in the right place. Yet I knew without a doubt that he wasn’t human.

I reread the rules carefully as I hurried out from behind the bar – Others had some customs that were very different from our own, and all accounts said it paid to stay on their good side – and rapped my knuckles on the walnut bar top to let Ellen know I was heading to the floor. This was possibly the most exciting moment of my life, and I wasn’t going to let anyone else swoop in and steal my customer. When I was halfway across the floor I noticed that no one else had seen him, or at least they hadn’t seen what he was, and I slowed my scurry to a respectable walk. Not that I ever look especially respectable – I’m over six feet of tanned, lanky boy and I have a habit of tripping over myself if I get too rushed.

I approached the table with as much calm as I could muster, and pasted a smile on my face. “Hi,” I said.

The Other looked around the bar, drinking in every detail. He didn’t look especially interested, but I took no offense at that. While he might not have been thrilled with his view, I wouldn’t trade mine for anything. He was beautiful. Not a word I’d use to describe most guys – especially not the ones who frequented The Roadhouse – but in his case it was true. Full lips that would put every female on staff to shame, skin that was pale but still had a kind of golden olive tone to it, like his family had come from somewhere in Europe that got a lot of sun. His hair was a mess of soft, dark locks that shone under the dim lights of the bar. All of him shone, it was like he was sitting in a spotlight all of his own. The voices that usually crowd my head faded to nothing more than an ambient mumble. Then he looked up at me for the first time, staring at me with eyes that were unfalteringly blue, and everything else in the world was tossed aside. I could have lost myself in those eyes.

He blinked and the spell was broken a little. Frayed, perhaps. “Can I get you anything?” I asked.

The Other wasn’t responding, so I tilted my head to one side and raised my eyebrows at him in question. After a moment, he also tilted his head to one side, though rather than raise his eyebrows, his furrowed in confusion.

“I don’t understand this gesture,” he said at last. His voice… I’d seen Others on the television, and heard them on the radio. They usually sounded like normal people, maybe a little stiff or formal. But this guy, his voice was rough and smoky; a deep and forceful sound even though he spoke quietly.

“It’s… It’s what you do when you have a question that you’re waiting to be answered. If you’re impatient, or maybe if the answer should be obvious and you don’t know why you haven’t received it. Or sometimes it’s what you do to show that you’re thinking, or that you don’t understand…” I realised I was babbling, so I cut myself off and tried to put my smile back in place. “Can I get you anything to drink? Or eat?”

He looked around the bar again, like he was trying to find some meaning in what everyone else was drinking with hopes of ordering the same and blending in. We’d attracted a lot of attention, so I didn’t like his chances. I reached out with my brain, an awful kneejerk reaction that I have when I feel uncomfortable. _Who the hell is that guy? Freak-fest at table five. I bet he’s one of those things. What the hell is Sammy getting up to over there?_

That last thought was my boss, Ellen, worrying about me. I turned around, and shot her a wide smile, before turning back to the Other. His second sweep of the bar didn’t seem to have given him the information he was looking for. “Do you have anything that is white?” he finally asked.

“Sure. White rum, white vodka, coconut cream. Wait, did you mean alcoholic or not? I guess we also have milk, for coffees.”

He looked up at me with those big, blue eyes, and then tilted his head to one side again, puzzling his way through his options. “May I have milk?” he finally asked.

“Sure.” I gave him another smile, hoping that maybe he’d copy that expression for a bit of variety. “Full cream, skim, or half and half?” He managed to tilt his head even further to one side, and his eyebrows raised in the middle, giving him a lost and helpless look. Too many options. “I’ll bring you full cream,” I said, slipping my pad back into my apron. “It tastes the best.”

I stepped back behind the bar, and crouched down to take a frosted glass out of the fridge. “That what I think it is?” Ellen asked. Ellen was a good judge of character, so I wasn’t surprised that she’d picked him as different.

I looked up at her, and couldn’t keep the smile off my face. “Yup.”

Ellen is in her forties. On her off days she dresses in jeans and a black t-shirt, with a flannel shirt thrown over the top, just like my brother and every other guy I know. The only difference on work days was that the flannel shirt was slung over a chair in her office, and the t-shirt was the familiar staff shirt with the name of the bar printed on the left breast. Her husband died a long time ago, and she raised her daughter Jo with a lot of love and no tolerance for bullshit. She’s hard as nails, and when she’s pissed she can rip you to shreds. I tend to think of her like a lion – loyal and fierce, and with a mane of dark blonde hair that Jo puts highlights in every few months. She gave me a long look, and I did my best to stay out of her head while I called into the kitchen for a carton of milk.

“You want fresh, or extra chunky?” Ash yelled through the hatch.

“I want it so fresh you haven’t opened it yet,” I called back.

Ash grumbled as he pulled a new carton out of the stainless steel fridge and handed it through the window that usually only saw the transfer of chips and fried chicken. “How can I hock a loogie in there if it’s not opened? You know it’s good luck, Sammy. Old chefs’ tradition.”

Ellen leaned her hip against the bar as I carefully poured the milk. “Don’t know how you’d know that,” she shot back, “seeing as you’re barely qualified to be a cook.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about – no one’s more dedicated to the preparation of delicate taste sensations than me.” He then proceeded to lift one arm and scratch his armpit with his spatula. I put the glass of milk on a tray with some paper napkins and a bowl of pretzels, and headed back over to my dark and mysterious stranger.

“Here you go,” I said brightly, placing the glass in front of him, the napkins to one side, and the pretzels across the table from the napkins. I stepped back and folded my empty tray under one arm. He hadn’t moved, still had his hands resting unclasped in his lap, still had an unseasonal overcoat on over his black suit. He looked up at me, and for the first time I think he was really looking at me. His eyes travelled over my face, taking in my hair (which needed cutting), my jaw (clean shaven), before shifting down to look at my name tag. I had a moment of panic – Jo liked to mess with mine, egged on by my brother when he came in.

“Sam,” he said, and I breathed a sigh of relief – no pranks on me today. I wished I could ask his name in return, but that was considered exceptionally rude by Others. I liked hearing his voice.

Instead I asked, “Is there anything else I can get you?”

He looked down at his milk, then his napkins, then gave the bowl of pretzels an oddly perplexed look. I guessed that maybe Others didn’t eat a lot of solids. “No,” he said at last. After a moment of thought he added, “Thank you.”

I gave him another smile, before getting back to work. Beers needed to be poured, glasses collected, pitchers delivered to tables. On the weekends Ash does a few simple pizzas, but during the week it was burgers and any sides that could be fried. The Roadhouse has a dedicated clientele – people who know every item on the menu and every song on the jukebox. Mainly older guys who work in the farms a few miles away from town, or the staff of the mix of businesses close by. Rarely anyone from Sioux Falls proper. I saw a lot of Dean’s friends in that night, but not my brother himself. Most likely he was out entertaining a lady somewhere. I was glad for his absence. He thinks he’s looking after me, but sometimes it feels a lot like hovering. Aside from that, he can be painfully curious about people, and I was sure that if he laid eyes on the Other he’d barrage him with a million and one questions.

So I only had the one distraction that night – the otherworldly creature sitting by himself at a round table. He kept me distracted enough that the thoughts of the other patrons just passed me by. Waiting tables is probably one of the few jobs where reading minds comes in useful – if anyone is pissed with the service, or about to start trouble with the guy who’s looking at the wrong girl a little too long, I know about it before anything happens. When it’s quiet I can just cast out a net, fishing for thoughts like _“I wish someone would come and take my order,”_ or _“where’s my damn burger?”_

Usually it’s a pain in the ass. Hearing people’s thoughts sucks. Every mean and nasty thing, every lustful and indecent thought. So many mundane quibbles that I don’t care about and never wanted to know. The idea that there were people out there that I couldn’t hear, you don’t know how alluring that was. I was seriously considering asking the Other if they had any bars of their own that needed some staff.

I gravitated back over to his table the moment there was a lull in drinks orders. “Will you be staying in Sioux Falls long?” I asked. “Or you just passing through?”

“I’m stationed here,” he replied, looking up from his glass. He was trailing his long fingers through the condensation beaded on the sides, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the idle motion.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

The conversation stopped there, and I wracked my brain for another question to ask him. “Do you like what you’ve seen of the town so far?”

His eyes honed in on my face, and again I was struck by the intensity of his deep blue gaze. “Yes,” he said simply. “I had not anticipated how much so.”

I felt my face flush, and was almost relieved when someone raised their hand for a refill. I excused myself, and was glad there was a steady stream of things to attend to all of a sudden. I just had such a feeling that I would make a fool of myself around him. I must seem so silly to him, getting myself all in a tangle over a remark that I had no business misinterpreting like that.

When I sought him out again, about twenty minutes later, his table was empty. Just his glass with the milk half drunk. When I went closer to clear it, I saw most of a pretzel on one of the paper napkins, the tiniest bite taken out of it. I guess salty wasn’t his thing. There were a few notes, and I put them in the till after pouring the leftover milk down the sink.

“Did it tip well?” Ellen asked, peering around my shoulder since I was too tall for her to peer over it.

I counted out the notes, and had to double check that he hadn’t ordered a meal or something without me noticing. “Yeah,” I said. “Really well.”

She patted my arm firmly. “If it becomes a regular, you’ll be a kept man,” she said, and headed off to deal with one of our few resident alcoholics.

Once he was gone, I had a whole long list of questions that I wanted to ask him. My head was in the clouds for the rest of the night wondering about him, and about Others in general. As Ellen counted up the till and I wiped the tables down before putting the chairs up on them, I was sorry that I hadn’t taken advantage of the situation more. I find it hard to just go up and talk with people, because when you first meet someone their head is always full of first impressions. It’s a daunting thing to sit down with every idea they have of you thrown in your face. I wouldn’t have had to worry about that with him. I frowned as I untied my apron, checked the pocket at the front once more, and dropped it in the laundry basket. I wondered if I would ever see him again.

The short answer was ‘yes’.

~*~

The next day was a Friday, which meant I had a double shift. The Roadhouse was open from eleven in the morning ‘til early the following morning on Fridays and Saturdays. Saturdays were my day off, which suited me fine – between the TGIF crowd and the post-church lunch rush on Sunday, I made pretty good tips. I had intended on spending the morning learning as much as I could about the Others. Like most people, I did my best to keep up with current events, but I didn’t know much about them aside from the headlines. Bobby killed that plan, however.

Bobby was a friend of my dad’s. They both served in Vietnam. Actually, I think most of my dad’s friends were war buddies. They didn’t serve together, but Vets gravitate towards one another. My mom died in a house fire when I was six, and Dad packed us into his car and drove until he found a town that had all the charm of my birthplace, Lawrence, Kansas, without the painful memories. Bobby and Karen, his wife, put up with us until Dad got it together enough to handle, well, being a dad again. After that they were like family. Dean and I used to go to Bobby and Karen’s after school until Dad got off work, and when I got old enough to clash with the old man I’d always run away to Bobby’s until I’d cooled down. Karen died of cancer when I was twelve, which just about tore Bobby apart. Looking back, I think Dad used to send me or Dean around to Bobby when he worried that his friend wasn’t looking after himself.

Dad died when I was nineteen. A stroke while we were playing three-man baseball in the park. That… well, it’s too big to go into now. Long story short is that Dean used to mediate between me and Dad a lot. Without Dad around, Dean and I started clashing. I guess we both had our own stuff to deal with. Being a telepath really sucks when it comes to mourning – Dean couldn’t untangle his feelings, but I could pick some of the big ones right out of his head. Sometimes I was trying to help, sometimes I wasn’t. Bobby asked me to stay with him for a few weeks, help him patch his place up. Five years later and I’m still there. Me and Dean get on fine, but he’s made the old house his own and I like living with Bobby. I’m rambling now.

On the morning in question, as they say in those courtroom dramas, Bobby foiled my plans of spending a few hours on youtube while still in my pyjamas by asking me to help him shift some stuff around in his workshop. He runs a salvage yard, and does repairs for the people he likes. Sometimes it’s replacing doors, sometimes it’s rebuilding engines. It’s always messy.

I was almost late to my first shift. I work eleven to four, then Ellen gives me two hours to study and have dinner, and then I do five-thirty until close (I save half an hour so I can rest my feet and have a soda around nine). I never made it to college, but I do a lot of correspondence courses with various community colleges. I’m good at studying on my own, and over the phone. But with my brain picking up unwanted stations I just can’t handle classrooms. The stress of my senior year – everyone else’s stress rocketing around in my brain – nearly sent me crazy. I never told Dad about what I can do. Sometimes I figure he must have known, but we never talked about it. He didn’t want to let me drop out, but I spent two weeks in bed having a breakdown, listening to him arguing with Dean about it, and when I finally emerged I didn’t have to go back.

Ellen does her best to encourage my studies, mainly because she thinks I’m setting a good example for Jo, who is a year older than me. She got her GED practically the minute she was old enough, and left school to work. Ellen refused to give her a job at The Roadhouse; she wasn’t going to hand her daughter her livelihood on a silver platter. Her plan had been that Jo would hate working dead-end jobs and go back to school, but that backfired in a major way.

When Jo was 21 she casually handed her mom a resume and, well, Ellen realised she’d be a fool not to hire Jo just because she’d had other expectations. Jo’s smart though, and she knows that a GED won’t get her too far. So when she found out I was taking some courses, she enrolled alongside me. We spend our breaks studying together, though hers are usually business management type things. At the time I was learning Spanish, before that it was a course on the classics, before that some politics. Whatever takes my fancy.

I was trying to e-mail off an assignment to my teacher, but the wifi in The Roadhouse was down. I’d convinced Ellen to get free wifi for the bar, as it was a nice and convenient service for the patrons. Ellen quite accurately groused that Jo and I were the only ones who used it. Ash usually did what ever magic tech stuff Ellen’s old computer required, but he was busy and I was free, so I headed around back to turn the router and modem on and off again until they decided to live together in harmony. I swear that all Ash has to do is shoot a stern look in the direction of any computer and it behaves. My preferred tools of trade are a mix of pleas and curses.

By the time I got that sorted, and coerced a bowl of fries away from the kitchen, a seat at my usual booth was filled. It was the Other, sitting with his back against one wall, watching the slow motions of the afternoon trade. I hesitated by the table, not sure if I should sit myself down, or simply move my things to another table. He looked up at me with those blue, blue eyes, and it occurred to me that the third option – standing where I was and staring at him in wonderment – was an alright compromise. Then his gaze lowered to my backpack sitting on the bench seat opposite him, and the textbook shoved to one corner of the table.

“I have intruded,” he said. “I apologise.”

“It’s okay,” I replied, finally sitting down. “We can share.” I offered him the bowl of fries, and he stared at it for a long moment, his face unreadable. “Would you like to try one?” I eventually prompted.

“What are they?”

My jaw dropped open just a little. A guy who’d never heard of French fries? The concept of slices of potato fried in oil was a simple one, but my amazement at having to explain it at all meant the process took longer than it should have. Eventually he reached out and took a single, small slice of potato. He held it between his thumb and two fingers for a long moment, examining it. He rubbed his thumb up and down its length, noting the texture of the potato, the sharpness of the dusting of salt. He took a careful bite, and turned it over in his mouth without chewing. His nose wrinkled a little, barely noticeable on most faces but this was not a guy who had a lot of expressions.

“You don’t like it?”

“It tastes like last night,” he replied.

I had to cast my mind back. “You mean the pretzels? Yeah, I guess they’re similar. All carbs and some salt for fun.”

He looked down at the remainder of the fry in his hand. Now that he wasn’t committed to eating it, he pressed it between his fingers, exploring the texture more thoroughly. “Salt is common.”

There wasn’t a lot I could milk from that observation. “It’s used as a preservative,” I explained.

“Yes.”

He seemed content to explore the mess of potato he’d smeared over the fingers of one hand. As I watched him I felt a mix of amusement at the way such a simple thing seemed new and perplexing to him, and mild lust. What can I say? He was a good looking guy and I couldn’t hear him thinking about what a freak I was.

I don’t exactly have a long list of sexual conquests. Or any, for that matter. I’d had a girlfriend in high school, before I got too strung out and weird for people to put up with me. My brother’s reputation had preceded me, and she’d been painfully curious to know if I matched up to his supposed prowess in bed. That was a mix of too creepy, and too much pressure. We didn’t get past kissing, and even that had been fairly chaste due to her paranoia that she wasn’t a good enough kisser, and my conviction that if she was apparently bad at locking lips, I must have been beyond abysmal. Being able to look at someone, to drink him in and admire him without the broadcast of his expectations and fears – or perhaps more likely, his disinterest and boredom – was so refreshing. It was like being alone in a gallery, able to stare at the artwork for as long as you liked.

Eventually he wiped the salt, grease, and mashed potato off his fingers with a paper napkin. He explored the clean edges of the napkin for a while, before reaching out and running a careful finger around the rim of the ceramic bowl.

“Is all of this new to you?” I asked. Either that, or this guy had a tactile fetish.

“Yes,” he replied simply. After he had satisfied himself that the bowl was of uniform smoothness all the way around, he looked up at me. “I have not been among humanity for many years. I am unfamiliar with a great number of things.”

“Is that why you’re coming to a bar? To people-watch?”

He tilted his head to one side, considering my words. “That is an apt phrase,” he said at last. “I was advised that this would be a good place to observe.”

I turned and looked over my shoulder at the bar. It was mainly wood, with a pool table in a second room at the other end of the bar, and a small area that was kept clear for the rare moments when people felt like dancing. There were maybe ten people in the bar, and half of those were staff. “It’s hard to believe a place this quiet is worth your attention,” I said, turning back to my companion. “Unless you’re just starting small?”

He was looking at me, really looking, that blue gaze that could pin me down in an instant. For a long moment we just stared at each other, his hands resting passively on the scarred wooden table top, my fries cooling and congealing between us. “It has been very interesting, so far,” he said at last. I felt my face start to redden again, and I looked away.

“I had so many things I wanted to ask you,” I said as I watched the few patrons of the bar. “I can’t remember most of them, and I think the others might be too rude.”

“You won’t know unless you ask,” he said calmly. After a moment’s thought, I decided to take that as an invitation.

“Do you have family?”

He took some time to consider the question. “Yes,” he said at last. “All of my kind, we are tied by blood. Some more closely than others. But the closeness varies, the reasons for it.”

“How do you mean?”

There was a pause, and I got the feeling that he was trying to decide how much to tell me. I tried to look easygoing and not at all like I was madly curious. I think I had mixed results.

“There are five that I am kin to. Some have authority over me, some have skills that match mine, the same orientation. They are not all kin to each other.”

I wondered what he meant by ‘orientation’. I got the feeling he wasn’t talking about sexuality, but no other definition readily jumped to mind. I’d read that Others were big on hierarchies and group organisation. Maybe that’s what orientation meant? It was just another form of classification?

“May I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” I replied, still mulling over what he had told me.

“Have you been a telepath since your birth?”

Everything around me stopped. I mean, I knew the word, knew that’s what I was. But no one had ever put that label on me, ever thought it so coherently. Most people thought I was weird, or a little unhinged. My family and the few friends I had… I think sometimes they questioned some of the things I said, like when I’d respond to something they hadn’t said aloud. Usually I was pretty smart, I kept my head down. They knew I was different, but they weren’t willing to make that leap. Not yet.

Hearing it said out loud shook me. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was the realisation that I was different, that maybe I should be lumped in with the Others as something not entirely human. Maybe it was the shock that he’d picked me for what I was so quickly. There was an instinct filling up my core, telling me to run, telling me to get away from this person who could so easily divine my secret.

I stood up from the table suddenly, grabbing my bag and slinging it over my shoulder. “I have to get back to work,” I said hurriedly. Then, because he was looking at me with his head tilted to one side and I found that to be so oddly endearing, I added, “I’ll talk to you later.”

I still had twenty minutes left of my break, but I spent it out the back doing inventory in the store room. Ellen poked her head in to ask if I was okay, and I told her that I wanted some more time for dinner that night, and that I knew the inventory wouldn’t get done once it got busy. “This is why I pay you the big dollars,” she said, and I gave the required bark of laughter in response. Working for Ellen paid better than most jobs waiting tables, but some weeks were pretty slim. When Jo and I work late together she’ll demand that we pool tips from the tables, since I have to do the heavy lifting and because “They’re tipping my boobs, not my stunning customer service”.

“This was left for you,” Andy said when I finally tied my apron on and stepped out to the bar. Andy took a year off from college maybe four years ago, and seems to have no intention of going back. He lives out of his van and has been slowly working his way across America. He’s almost made it across two states. He had my Spanish textbook in his hand, and I realised that I must have left it at the booth when I fled. I glanced over to the corner, but the Other was long gone. I went to go and stick it in my backpack, and noticed the corner of a napkin sticking out between some pages. He’d written me a note on a clean napkin in neat, heavy handwriting:

 _I apologise for offending you._

Short and sweet.

The after work crowd was starting to trickle in, my brother among them. Dean was working for the council at the time, doing maintenance like putting up new street signs when they got damaged or stolen, painting over graffiti, clearing debris off the road. It might sound like he has a crappier job than me, but Dean loves it. He likes being outside, meeting people. He’s charming, and he knows it. I was glad Jo wasn’t working with me. I love Jo like a sister, and the way she looks at Dean is not at all sisterly. When she has her mind set on something it’s projected out for any nearby mind readers (that is, me) to endure. There are some things that I shouldn’t have to know other people are even thinking about Dean, never mind having to hear them as if Jo were yelling it all right into my ear.

Compared to Jo, Dean has a pretty quiet head. I can pick through his thoughts because we grew up together, but usually his mind is just background noise, like the rumble of an engine. Sometimes a thought will flash through his mind, as clear as if he’d said it out loud, but usually Dean holds his cards close to his chest. I poured him a beer while he made his way across the bar, nodding and smiling to the people he knew. I envy his ability to make friends so easily. That said, there were also times when I was glad that we were so different, like when his eyes took in the guys at the pool table and he laid out some plans to do some hustling before settling into a night of leisure.

“Hey, Ash,” Dean called out when he finally reached the bar. He nodded to Andy who was passing with a tray of food, and put on his special smile for Ellen, who swatted at him with a dish rag while she went to clear up a table.

“Good day?” I asked, sliding a bowl of nuts in front of him.

“Yeah, the weather was beautiful. Not that you saw much of it.”

I smiled sweetly at him. “Just keeping my pretty skin safe from melanomas.”

He rolled his eyes. “They’re looking for some guys for the road works,” he said. “You should look into it, do some heavy lifting.”

My smile got a little forced then. Dean goes through cycles where he thinks we should hang out more. This time, his grand plan was that we should work together. Before that he had decided that I needed to learn how to hunt, and before that he wanted me to help fix up the Impala that he inherited when Dad died. I like my brother, don’t get me wrong, but he hasn’t exactly noticed that I’ve done some growing up over the past years, and whenever we hang out there’s always this pressure for me to be as normal as possible. To hang out with his friends, and have dinner with a friend of whatever girl he’s seeing.

As much as I know he loves me, it’s always right at the front of his mind, him waiting for me to slip up and worrying about it. It gets exhausting for me, trying to block everyone out and apply a filter to everything that comes out of my mouth. And of course, when I get paranoid my stupid little curse gets stronger. It makes sense – if I feel threatened, hearing people’s thoughts should make it easy to pinpoint any real danger. But there never is any danger, and I usually have to fake a migraine or pretend that I promised to help out at The Roadhouse or something.

So, the idea of me quitting a job that I liked, getting dusty and sweaty and sunburnt with a bunch of guys I didn’t know, and putting up with Dean hovering around in case I had an attack of being weird? Not my ideal way to spend an afternoon. But I told Dean I’d look into it once I’d finished my courses and wouldn’t need so much free time. He beamed at me, said “Awesome,” and then took off to catch up with some friends of his.

It was a busy night and I did my best to work hard, talking to the customers when I had time and smiling at them when I didn’t. There are lots of little things to keep track of – who has allergies and won’t remember to tell me when ordering, keeping count of drinks, watching anyone new to make sure they behaved. Every now and then some kids would come in for burgers and try to walk out without paying, or would flash a fake ID. It’s easy to just shove everything to one side and forget about it while I’m working. It takes enough brainpower just focussing on what comes out of people’s mouths instead of what’s clamouring inside their skulls.

Dean’s new girl showed up, and I could feel pleasure rolling off of him and amusement from her. Ava and some of her friends from the library and the coffee shop next door were in, their minds a tangle of excitement over the books they’d be getting in over the next month. Ava’s mind was like a shy bird, darting in and out of twisted branches as she shot glances over to Andy as he mixed drinks and she wondered what she could talk to him about. I asked Andy if he could take their food over, and let him know that new books were coming in. He perked up, and I could hear him asking Ava if she knew if any music history or airbrush art books were among them. Happiness poured off her in waves, and I smiled to myself. Usually I did everything I could to keep from meddling, but she’d been kind to me in high school and Andy was a good guy.

Chuck, our resident writer, was sitting at a wobbly table and watching everyone morosely. Chuck’s mind is a pit of first-world problems and cravings for cheap vodka, so usually I steered clear. I did go over and shove a folded up cardboard coaster under the short leg, and was treated to a string of thoughts along the lines of _she’ll laugh in my face. No Chuck, definitely give up on that idea, she’s way out of my league. Every girl is out of my league_ for my troubles. Whatever was going on there was something that Chuck would have to deal with alone.

Detective Henrickson was in with his wife, who was annoyed at the long hours he’d been working and was worrying that he was finding excuses to stay back late. Henrickson was exhausted and doing his best to hide it, was doing his best to avoid thinking about the body that had been found just inside the border. I recommended they try the new beer we had on tap, as it went well with the chicken burger. He gave me a tip for the drink recommendation when they left, which was nice of him. Henrickson scared the crap out of me, and I’ve never broken a law in my life. He’s a good cop, but he’s seen a lot of bad things and he tends to carry them with him.

At the same time, it was nice to be reminded of all the bigger problems in the world. So I could read minds and my brother wanted to hang out with me more. They were hardly problems at all. At least I hadn’t been found with a hole going through my neck.

We started closing a little after one, wiping tables down and putting chairs up even as Chuck picked at what was left of his dinner (chicken strips and fried pickles), delaying the inevitable. Andy was trying to remember if he had clean clothes to wear to the library, Ellen was counting the till, and Ash was scrubbing down the flat top as his final task of the night. I was just plain looking forward to my day off, and nothing could sully that tired feeling of happiness that came with knowing I could sleep as late as I wanted the following day. Not even Chuck’s disjointed dread at going home to bed.

 _I hope I don’t dream. I don’t want any more of those dreams. I write children’s books for god’s sake. Pull it together, Chuck, she’s watching._

I looked up then and caught Ellen giving Chuck a skeptical look. I nodded to let her know that he was alright to drive, and asked him if he wanted an escort to his car since he was the last to leave. He shook his head, and parted with a vague “Goodnight,” aimed at all of us and some crumpled bills on the table.

With the last customer gone and most of the cleaning done I was free to go home. I was already fantasising about taking my shoes off and falling into bed.

~*~

I slept in until ten, a wonderful way to start a Saturday, then I fired up my laptop and demolished a bowl of cereal while I coaxed it to talk to Bobby’s wireless router. My laptop was a clunky old thing, and even my computer-phobic brother teased me about needing a new one. It did the job though, and I couldn’t justify the expense of getting a new one just for the hell of it. There was still some milk left in my bowl by the time I got online, and if that’s not a sign that the universe wants you to eat more cereal I don’t know what is. I sat amongst my rumpled bed clothes, eating cereal and drinking coffee that was piping hot from a quick turn in the microwave, and I set out to learn everything I could about Others.

The name came about simply enough. On the night they’d revealed themselves to the world, every television and radio had been taken over with the same message:

 _We have lived among you, we have fought beside you, and we are ready to come out from the shadows._

 _We are not human. We are something other._

As you can imagine, it took a while for us to actually believe it. There’s a video you can watch of a lab doing a DNA test. It’s one long, single-shot video and it honestly goes for about seven hours because it starts with some cheek cells being taken from an Other who worked at a university, and then all of the stuff they do to get the DNA out, and then the amplification, and then running the DNA on a gel to get bands. I didn’t feel any real need to watch it, but it took a couple of these experiments for people to actually accept that, okay, non-human. Of course, there was a lot of anger because the Others who donated their blood or skin always made a point of destroying the samples afterwards. I could understand that – I wouldn’t want to be experimented on, or have my DNA stolen or whatever – but apparently scientists can get angry about that kind of thing.

Anyway, the Others made themselves available, with one voice at the top explaining things and Others below it allowing some poking and prodding. The voice in the Americas had belonged to the regional representative, an older man with a genial smile, dark eyes and a shiny head that was bald on top, in an immaculate business suit. All Others were dressed similarly.

“We want to be taken seriously,” he’d said, and given the camera what he must have thought was a charming smile. He asked to be called “Mister Makuria,” though few people had taken him up on the invitation. Like their representative, many Others who had positions in the community took on handles to make communication easier.

“I don’t know what it is about humans,” Mr Fox, ‘the idiot’s guide to Others’, said in one of his earlier appearances. “You just need to put labels on everything. Why do you need names at all? I know which of you I’m talking to; you know which of you I’m talking to. It’s even easier amongst ourselves. I guess we haven’t been trained with your bad habits yet. No, that’s not true. We’ve grown up together. You know how sometimes couples or siblings can leave words out, or finish each other’s sentences, and it’s just really creepy for everyone watching? Yeah, we’re worse than that.”

The morning TV presenter had blinked prettily at Mr Fox. “And the name you’ve very generously given yourself, why did you choose it?”

“The Fantastic Mr Fox is probably my literary hero,” he’d replied with a deadly serious face. Then he’d opened a bag of m&ms and taken great pleasure in cracking the candy shells between his back teeth as he talked. “You like books?” And from then on out he was flirting with the presenter and doing his best to make her laugh.

From what I could tell, he wasn’t the best example of an Other.

“I’m young,” he explained in his first TV spot. Someone had stuffed him into a suit, though he wore no tie and had white tennis shoes on his feet. A blonde Other sat by his side, though she didn’t contribute to the discussion. “The older you are the more set in your ways, right? Whereas it’s the kids who go out backpacking and seeing new cultures and getting bits of metal shoved in their face. Most of us have lived in a very close-knit, very preserved culture, and though the young have always been breaking boundaries, the young have a bad habit of growing up, and growing old.” He looked a little sad for a moment. “So,” he said suddenly, brightening up, “I guess you’ve gotta enjoy it while you can, right?”

Mr Fox got trotted around the talk shows and morning shows, and even did a few segments on the news in the first few months. Being young meant that he was more in touch with us humans, and more able to explain things. Most Others didn’t like explaining their differences. The party line seemed to be “This is the way we are. Deal with it.”

“Why did you-all decide to come out now?” someone finally asked.

He paused to think, and I leaned closer to my screen in anticipation. “Politics, I think. Humanity has slowly been getting more tolerant. The view for a long time had been that we would probably reveal our presence within the next two hundred years. We wanted to wait until all humans had the same rights before we went and complicated things. But as for why now, why _this_ year? This specific time? Politics, pure and simple. Those of us who have been among humans have been dragged into their politics for thousands of years, and for the first time humans are starting to get drawn into our own systems and regulations. It seemed best that we lay all of the cards on the table.”

“And what are these politics?” the interviewer asked, giving voice to my own curiosity.

Mr Fox shrugged, and slouched back in his chair. “Sometimes a human and an Other fall in love – can they get married? For a long time our people said ‘no’, so those who were in love said ‘fine, we’ll live together until death do us part without your stupid ceremony’. We have long lives, and long memories. That kind of devotion strikes a chord, and now people are saying ‘if the love is pure, it should be recognised’. There are other things, too. If a human kills an Other, which has happened many times in the past, how should they be punished? If an Other kills a human, which has happened a whole bunch too, should they be judged by a jury of their peers, a jury of their victim’s peers, or both?” He shrugged.

“How has it been handled in the past?” the interviewer asked.

The blonde Other by his side – who had been dubbed Ms Snow by the commentators on youtube – leaned towards him and the sound went static for a moment. A lot of people on the internet believed that Others had a non-verbal method of communicating with each other, and it messed with studio sound equipment. When she pulled back, Mr Fox grinned at the interviewer.

“Barbarically,” he said with a brutal, cheerful honesty. “High time we moved on, right?”

Mr Fox soon got a regular segment on satellite radio, which I think must be one of the smartest moves by a radio executive ever. It was a call-in segment, where people could ask questions and pose hypotheticals. Sometimes he’d ask questions of the human race, like “so what’s up with music these days?” and “who invented taffy?” and “how come you’re dicks to everyone all the time?” He has a lot of charm, and some people think he’s not an Other at all, just a human mouthpiece. I spent the whole afternoon listening to his voice, watching his mannerisms. He was certainly very human, but he was human from a distance, if that makes sense. He was an actor playing a part, and his acting wasn’t always perfect.

“Have humans and Others really been in love?” one caller asked. She sounded young, and I smiled at the shy manner in which she asked her question.

“Yes,” Mr Fox replied. “But not often.”

“How come?”

Mr Fox actually thought about it, considering his words rather than giving a glib response. “Because it’s hard,” he said at last. “We have very different cultures. It takes a lot of effort to understand someone who is so different. And then there’s the difference in life span. A young person is more likely to throw everything away, to learn a new language and a new way of life because once all of that learning is done they’ll still have so much time together. But for a young Other, that just means so much time alone after the human has passed on. And while an old Other might be less likely to outlive their love, it would be so much harder for them to give up everything they’ve already established, to learn something new.

“You humans are so different from us,” he continued. “The way you talk about yourselves, your feelings. You call us reserved, but you have no word that describes how we see you. So full of life and impulses, and so illogical and lacking in caution. It’s wonderful and frightening. You’re like wild animals, beautiful and dangerous, and acting on instincts that we can understand but we have no empathy for.”

“We’re not so bad,” the caller had finally responded, in a small voice.

“You’re amazing,” Mr Fox had agreed.

“Would you ever date a human?”

“If I could ever find one that could put up with me,” he replied with a charming laugh. And that’s what the rest of the show had been, people calling in with offers and Mr Fox asking questions about romantic comedies and why boys bought flowers for the girls and not the other way around. But that was the exchange that I clung onto, that idea that humans were scary and unpredictable. In that context, it kind of made sense for the Other to be hanging out at The Roadhouse – small, predictable, but human. Whoever had recommended it had been right on the money.

Dean came over mid-afternoon to tinker alongside Bobby in the workshop, and I put on jeans and a singlet and padded out to help. I’m not great with cars the way Dean is. He’s been keeping the Impala in top condition since we moved here. But I can clean things, and fetch tools and beer, and help with the heavy lifting. Valuable skills. I asked Dean about his girl from last night, and he told me she was “Pretty cool,” but his mind said, “I like her a lot.” I could feel Bobby give a kind of mental eye roll at Dean’s attempt to play it cool. You can’t fool everyone.

Dean stayed for dinner. Bobby cooked up chilli and rice, and Dean and I argued about what to watch on television until Bobby called us idiots and turned on the radio to drown out our bickering. As Dean and I packed the leftovers away and washed up, Dean asked if I had any bright ideas for Bobby’s birthday, which was a few weeks away.

“There are some books I know he wants.”

“You’re a dork,” Dean said. “We’re getting him whiskey.” I snorted. “You can make a cake or some bullshit,” Dean added. “It’s been a while since we did a cake.”

I paused at that. Karen had taught me a lot about cooking in the years I’d known her. She had a lot of knowledge to share, and I think she was glad to have a student. Bobby made chilli, and grilled steaks, and baked potatoes, but I was the one who knew pies and stews and all of the homier things. Looking in Dean’s head, I saw that he was worried that me and Bobby were sitting out in the middle of nowhere all by ourselves.

“Maybe we could have some people over?” I suggested slowly. “Like Ellen and Jo,” who had been Bobby’s friends for longer than we’d known him. “And you can bring Cassie.”

Dean gave me a look. “And who are you going to bring, Romeo? Or are you and Jo finally getting somewhere?”

I made a face. Jo is pretty enough, but like I said earlier, she’s sister material. And I’d already dated a girl with Dean on the brain; I had no desire to revisit that territory.

“I’ll bring a book,” I said. “It’ll be better company than your lovesick self.” Dean splashed water at me, and I splashed back, and a few minutes later Bobby had to come in and break us up.

“Calm down before you drown yourselves,” he’d grumbled, and when Dean splashed water at him in childish rebellion, some bubbles from the detergent caught on the brim of his hat, and the sight of those jaunty bubbles above his stern and craggy face made us both cackle with laughter. He did his best not to crack a smile, but I could feel his own amusement rolling off him.

It was a good day.


	2. Chapter 2

Sunday was a nice, easy shift. The sun was bright and people were in good moods. The after-church crowd usually ordered lunch and went easy on the drinks. I rarely go to church – whenever Pastor Jim is in town, or someone invites me. I wasn’t raised religious, but the bible seems to have some good ideas in there along with (as Dad always phrased it) ‘the bullshit’. I often enjoy the raised spirits that come from a positive sermon, just as I cringe under the weight of guilt and regret that comes from a damning one.

The lunch crowd were gone by two, leaving a casual drinking crowd who had nowhere special to be and were enjoying darts and pool and the mullet rock on the jukebox along with their pitchers of beer. And then that crowd started thinning out, heading home for Sunday dinner with the folks or for a quiet night before work bright and early the next day.

That left us with Dean and a few of his friends – people who didn’t have much to go home to and were enjoying the company of others to the fullest. Dean isn’t great at being alone for long stretches; he’s a people person. We were also left with the polar-opposite: Chuck, who was staring morosely into his black Shirley Temple, uninterested in the good company but still preferring it over the solitude of his own head. I picked up that he was still having bad dreams, but thankfully his thoughts were too scrambled to project more than that.

Ellen and Jo took care of shaking these last customers loose, Jo taking longer than necessary to point Dean towards the door, hoping he’d notice how well the singlet she was wearing fit her, hoping he’d notice the way she looked at him. I shook my head as I hauled the bags of trash to the back door and propped it open. Dean loves women; he loves one night stands and being in relationships. He’s just a little addicted to that something different that he gets from the company of females. But for all that he’s a hopeless flirt, he’s pretty oblivious to when people are interested in him. He puts his success in dating down to luck and his own dogged determination. It never occurs to him that there’s something worthwhile under the pickup lines and cocky smile.

I was shaken out of my thoughts by the sight of someone standing at the back of the employee parking lot. The Other, made completely conspicuous by his tan overcoat, a splash of mediocre colour against the dark shrubbery at the back of the lot. He was standing under one of the security lights, looking up at the bugs circling it. It wasn’t dark yet, but dusk was settling and the first of the night animals would be stretching their legs. I slung the bags of trash into the dumpster, and walked over to him. For a moment we stood side by side, staring up at the bright light as it flickered and a handful of bugs bashed against it.

“You didn’t offend me,” I said at last. “I know what I am. I’m just not used to other people knowing.” I swallowed, and licked my lips. “Please don’t tell anyone?”

He nodded without tearing his eyes away from the dance of wings and bodies above us. Eventually I moved away, heading back to the bar. I paused halfway there, and turned back to him. “Have a good night,” I called.

He turned then and looked at me, a thousand yard stare that I couldn’t fathom the meaning of. “Do you have any plans?” I asked, immediately feeling stupid. He regarded me for another long moment.

“Take care, Sam,” he finally said, and I shivered at the way he said my name. Ellen hollered for me from the bar, and I finally managed to tear myself away.

~*~

On Monday Detective Henrickson made a brief press release out the front of the Sioux Falls Metropolitan Police station. I paused in front of Bobby’s television, my shoes in my hands and one of my socks still in hiding.

“The first body was found last week, in Codington County. A second body was found yesterday, within the county of Lincoln. Both individuals, males in their early twenties, were fatally stabbed in isolated areas. Similar deaths have been observed in Iowa and Michigan.”

I sank down onto the battered couch, and tried to digest that information. A murder? Here? My first thought was to wonder who the victim had been, and then I chided myself for such insensitive curiosity.

“If anyone has any information that may be pertinent to this case, we ask them to come forward. Until it is resolved, we ask that all residents take care if travelling alone. Thank you.”

Between the brief interview and my frantic search for a second sock, I was a little late to work, scuttling through the back door and tying my apron around my waist at ten past eleven. I’d be working until five, when Jo would take over. Andy was working the double shift and it was Ellen’s day off. She was in behind the bar anyway, always in place whenever anything happened to shake our little community. The television was on and tuned to the local news station, though there was nothing new to report and it was currently broadcasting the previous year’s National Dog Grooming Championship. Ash threw me a mock salute as I called a greeting to him. He was wondering when the computer parts he’d ordered would arrive. It was nice to hear one mind in the bar that wasn’t brimming with thoughts and questions about the murder.

It was times like this when I hated being able to read minds the most. Usually when people think, it’s a mix of pictures and feelings and keywords. Sometimes a phrase will ring clear as a bell, like when people are biting their tongues. It’s rarely a coherent inner monologue unless the person is focussed on something. That’s why school was so hard for me, it was like everyone was yelling their entire thought process as they tried to understand an equation or memorise significant dates.

With the news of a murder everyone was thinking at the top of their lungs, so to speak, wondering who it was, if they’d deserved it, how they’d been stabbed, how long until the body was found. Some people were imagining what it must have looked like, wondering how much blood there had been, if the body had been decaying, whether it was bloated and blue and if maggots had eaten the eyes…

I shut myself in the storeroom and leaned heavily against the door, trying to breathe slowly and calm my heaving stomach. I imagined that I had my hands clapped over my ears, that I could block out the noise that simply. Between that, and the deep breathing, and the thick door, I slowly managed to shut everyone’s thoughts out, and put my smile back in place. It was a tough shift for me, but I did my best.

The Roadhouse isn’t divvied up into sections for each of the waiting staff, and today that worked for my advantage. I asked Andy to cover the tables that had the loudest thinkers. That lumped me with the people who had started drinking early and the more scatterbrained diners who usually took forever deciding what to order.

I kept a mental ear out for Ellen. I like to keep track of her when I’m in danger of freaking out because I know that I have nothing to worry about until I feel her getting concerned. Every now and then Andy would walk between me and Ellen and I’d get a whiff of his thoughts. He’s not usually a loud person, and in fact I can rarely hear his thoughts at all, but he’s always focussed on someone or other and I can sense that intent attention. Sometimes words would slip from his mind into mine, usually when we brushed past one another or we stood by one another for a length of time, mixing drinks. _Distract them distract them, make them tip, I wonder if they know anything about Ava, keep everyone calm, I bet I can make that guy…_ And then he’d be gone, out of the line of fire.

The conversation went in spikes – people would come in and share everything they knew, pick up any new details, and then the conversation would turn to other things. Then someone new would come in, and they’d share everything they knew, and pick up any new details, and it would repeat over and over. It was a nice predictability. Whenever someone new came in the door, I just thought my own thoughts extra-loud to drown out the surge in brain activity around me.

Chuck came in around four, and I dropped a menu off at his table though I knew he wouldn’t be ordering food. I find it pays to be optimistic with Chuck, and while his brain could aptly be compared to a pit of doom, I always feel bad about letting Andy take care of him. Not that Andy can’t handle Chuck, it’s just that Chuck always looks so sad and confused when Andy’s done with him. Andy just has that effect on some people.

A news update came on while I was running Chuck through the day’s specials, and I shut up as Ellen cranked the volume. The local news team gave a quick rundown of the murders, and Chuck’s brain went into overdrive.

 _Oh god, oh god it’s just like in my dreams._ I saw an image in Chuck’s mind of a young man – a mop of hair, blue eyes and freckles across his nose. It was an unnaturally crisp image, almost like it was being projected straight into my head. And then a photo of one of the victims was shown on screen. It was the same person, though I knew this was the first time Chuck had heard of the murders. I was standing there gaping at him, and barely registered as Detective Henrickson revealed that there had been a string of similar murders, crossing several states.

“Vodka,” Chuck finally said. “Cheap. A pint of it.” And then he buried his face in his hands.

I had no idea what to do. I was pretty sure Chuck wasn’t a killer. He could barely handle talking to people so killing someone was definitely out of his skill set. But he had known the face, and the fear that had been inside him… Chuck was convinced that he was connected to the murders somehow, and that was more than enough to make me want to get the hell away from him. But what could I do? I couldn’t tell anyone. “I think you should arrest this guy. Why? I can’t tell you.” By the time I got Chuck his drink – I’d changed it to a pre-mixed vodka drink, it just about matched the volume he’d asked for, and it was certainly cheap – and did a last round of my tables, it was time for me to clock off.

I got out of there and went straight home. Even though Bobby was out in the yard, working on replacing a door and singing along with the radio, I went up to my room and locked the door. I had a prickling feeling that I couldn’t shake, like someone was watching me.

~*~

By the time the next morning rolled around, I was feeling a little embarrassed by my jumpiness. There were a dozen explanations for what went on in Chuck’s brain last night. Well, at least a few.

One, Chuck was a killer. Unlikely, as Chuck couldn’t shift a table on his own let alone restrain and kill a fully grown person. Two, Chuck had seen the murder and repressed it, though his nightmares remained as reminders of what he’d seen. Also unlikely, as there had been no reports of murders at his home or The Roadhouse and Chuck was always at one or the other. Three, Chuck was some kind of psychic. A little ridiculous, but who am I to judge? Four, Chuck spent most of his time drunk and having awful dreams, and this was all just one of those eerie coincidences. I wouldn’t put any money on it, but this last option was my favourite.

I wanted to believe number four. Numbers one and two made my skin crawl so I was more than willing to discount them completely. But number three… I wanted to say that there was no such thing as psychics, but until two years ago there had been no such thing as Others. And what about mind readers? While I’d never met anyone else with brain powers (or rather, never _knowingly_ met anyone), it didn’t make sense that I would be the only one. Whatever mutation that caused this… there were just too many people in the world for it to be a one off.

I decided to keep my mouth shut and my head on straight. Surely if someone were going around killing people, they’d be caught eventually. Henrickson reminded me of a greyhound – sleek, alert, and fast. He could probably sniff out the murderer on his own.

With such affirming thoughts in my head, I managed to coax myself out of bed. I felt groggy from oversleeping, though I knew I’d appreciate the extra hours I’d spent dreaming later that night. I spent the day running errands – picking up groceries, paying some bills, getting new books from the library. Ava recommended a new short story collection, and did her best to seem completely casual when she asked when Andy was working next.

I got home around the same time as Dean pulled up Bobby’s long driveway, and I set about making the three of us sandwiches with thick slices of ham and cheese – mustard for Dean, pickle for Bobby, relish for me. Karen used to say, “Only men can be so picky while being so easy to please”.

“Heard something new about the murders,” Dean said with his mouth full of half-chewed food. “All of the victims were from out of town. Wait,” he paused to drink down some Coke. “I mean, they all lived in their towns, but they’d all moved there from somewhere else. Is that a weird pattern or what?”

“You boys had better watch your backs,” Bobby replied. “Me too, for that matter.” Bobby had grown up two towns over, still in Sioux Falls, but he’d moved down to Mortistow after he married Karen because neither had wanted to live in the same town as their families.

“It’s probably just coincidence,” I said. “I mean, how many people move around these days? It’d be harder to find someone who had lived in one place their whole lives.”

“I guess,” Dean said, though he clearly didn’t want to let go of his new discovery. “I found out something about the stab wounds though.”

“Not at my table, you didn’t,” Bobby said sternly. “If you put me off my food I’m gonna make you scrub out the rain water tank.”

Dean ducked his head, pretending to be suitably chastised. I knew he was planning on telling me as soon as Bobby was out of earshot. I didn’t want to know, but he was so eagerly mapping out exactly what he was going to say, how he was going to tell me that the stabbings were just one wound – a hole in the neck you could see through.

“Ew,” I said, wrinkling my nose. Dean and Bobby turned to stare at me, and I scrambled for a cover. “Dude, chew with your mouth closed.” Dean grinned and made a show of opening his mouth wide, wiggling his tongue so a sea of half-chewed bread and cheese and ham rose and fell in waves.

“You’re so gross,” I said, dropping what was left of my sandwich on my plate in disgust. Dean closed his mouth and smiled proudly. “I don’t know how you can be so juvenile without someone stripping you of your big brother status.”

“It’s because I’m awesome,” he replied loftily, and then Bobby jumped in with a question about upcoming road works so Dean and I couldn’t start on one another properly.

I didn’t bother paying attention, and I was starting to doubt that there was any point in me trying to avoid this murder business. Not that I’m a big believer in fate, but if something gets shoved in my face over and over, it seems kind of silly to ignore it.

~*~

Jo had the manager badge on that night, and I could read her satisfaction at making her mother stay at home written all over her brain. Ellen and Jo seemed to be competing to see who could annoy the other the most by means of wanting what was best for them. “Hey Sammy,” she said by way of greeting.

“Hey Jolene,” I tossed back with a smile.

Ash sauntered past us then, singing “Jolene, Jolene, Jo-leene Jo-le-ee-ee-eene. I’m begging of you please don’t steal my spam.” Jo swatted at him with a towel, and he slid easily back into the kitchen, a ball cap on backwards as his only concession to the state requirement that any kitchen staff with hair longer than their collars must wear a hairnet for hygiene purposes.

Andy grinned at me. He was wearing his uniform t-shirt layered over a long-sleeved tee and the one pair of jeans he owned that didn’t have a hole in them. “Looking good,” I told him.

“Hm? Oh, whatever,” he said, trying to play it cool and failing. Actually, maybe he was cool on the outside, but on the inside he was jumping up and down like an excited little kid. “Hey, did you know that it’s Ava’s birthday today?”

That explained it. “I knew it was around this time of year.”

“She’s coming in for drinks tonight, with some friends.”

“Just in time for you to get off shift, huh?”

Andy tried to smother a smile, and for a moment he looked coy. In some ways, Andy was a similar enigma to my brother. He was a nice person, got on well with people – in fact, he usually had the customers eating out of his hands – but I’d never heard him mention a girlfriend or boyfriend, and I knew for a fact he hadn’t been seeing anyone since he’d come to town. There was just some block somewhere that stopped him from making a move, or accepting some flirtation. I was glad I’d given him and Ava a nudge towards each other.

Jo shouldered her way between us then, handing a tray of food to Andy and then shoving an order pad into the front pocket of my apron. “If you two are done gossiping…”

“Yes ma’am,” we said in unison, and I set off to do the first round of my tables.

The Other came in just before seven, I could see the glow that lit him up out of the corner of my eye, but before I could dash over to him, Andy was by his table. I frowned. Not that I had any kind of right to the Other… I turned back to my customers and focussed on taking an order.

Andy brushed past me as he went to the bar to fetch the Other his drinks – one glass of water with ice, and one without – and I could hear the excited mantra of his mind. _You have to try it, you have to know if it works on them. I don’t know, something normal, something normal_. I was a little worried, but I had pitchers of beer to fill and food orders to deliver.

As I wove through the bar, listening to stray thoughts, it struck me how few people realised there was an Other in our midst. Andy had picked him, and Jo knew but I could feel her trying to find some oddity to justify the classification, so I concluded that Ellen had told her. A few people noticed something off about him, something about his manner that made them wonder about the Others and how one could tell for certain… All of this uncertainty and speculation nearly made my jaw drop. He glowed, for Pete’s sake. A clear light bathing his skin even in the less than amazing light of the bar. Was I the only one to see it?

Eventually I managed to work my way around to his table, my tray folded under one arm and a smile on my face. “Is everything okay?” I asked. He looked up at me, and then past me to Andy who was leaning against the bar, looking at us intently. For a moment I was worried that I’d upset Andy, talking to his customer, but his brain didn’t yield any signs of irritation, just a steady hum that I had always assumed signified Andy meditating on something.

The Other gave Andy a pointed look, raised one hand to grip the lip of the glass of water (no ice) with his long, delicate fingers, and then he tipped it over with more precision than you could believe the act would deserve. Water splashed over the table, and against my apron, and dripped down onto my boots. I stepped back, and felt Andy’s mind shut down and he retreated to the back of the bar. Jo, having missed the whole weird event, tossed the towel that usually lived over one shoulder to me as she passed, and I set about cleaning the puddle of water up.

“I apologise for my clumsiness,” the Other said.

I considered my possible responses. That had been no accident, but I had no idea what it could have meant. Eventually I said, “You never struck me as the clumsy type.”

I straightened up and cleaned the spilt water off the tabletop. He watched my every move, as if he were researching how to clean up liquid and was worried there might be a test later. When the water was safely soaked up in the towel, his attention turned to me, looking at the damp patch halfway down my thigh from his spill, then his gaze moved upwards and he paused to consider the contrast between the black of the sleeve of my work t-shirt and the tanned skin of my bicep, before skating up to take in my face – his own features shifting slightly as if he were trying my slightly exasperated expression on for size – and then back down to my name tag.

“It was the necessary response for the situation,” whatever that meant, “‘Sammy’?”

I started, and then glanced down at my name badge. Jo had changed it again. ‘Sammy’ was her favourite for nights when she thought Ellen might be in – it wasn’t a severe enough deviation for her to get in trouble, but it irked me and she knew it.

“Has your name changed?” the Other asked.

“What? No, this is just a nickname.” He tilted his head at me. “Uh, it’s a variation of my name that those close to me use. I don’t like it. It’s not meant to be on my name badge, that was someone playing a joke on me.”

The Other turned his focus inwards for a moment, considering this new influx of information. “It is cruel that someone would misrepresent your name against your wishes,” he said at last.

“What? It’s not- Wait, names are really important to you, aren’t they?”

He nodded, and his expression was surprisingly earnest, but he offered no further explanation.

“It’s not that bad. People used to call me Sammy when I was a kid. It was a term of affection. I just don’t like it now because I’m not a kid anymore, right?”

He absorbed my explanation with minimal consternation. “If this endearment is age-restricted, why is it still used?”

The Other spoke like he’d swallowed a dictionary, but his voice was rough and low, and a pleasure to listen to. He could probably read the phone book and I’d listen from start to finish.

“It’s because…” I had to pause and actually consider his question. “I guess it’s because they want to remind me of the relationship we had when I was younger. Or if they didn’t know me back then, they want to emulate that closeness.”

He pursed his lips as he thought – an action he’d picked up since I’d first met him – and I allowed myself to enjoy the sight. “It’s an application for intimacy?” he suggested.

“Yes, that’s it exactly.” I grinned at him. “Well put.” He looked mildly pleased with himself, and I enjoyed that sight too. He was handsome in a very other-worldly kind of way, with his stoic expressions and his awkwardly distant manner. Every expression that put emotion onto his face made him more approachable, and so I was thankful for every one of them. His mind was peaceful. Even if there had been a storm of turmoil inside his cranium, the silence of his thoughts would always seem peaceful to me. I could have stood there staring at his beautiful face and listening to the hushed contentment of his mind all night, but Jo flicked me with a towel as she passed, a sharp reminder that I had work to do.

“Did you want more water?” I asked as I finally picked up his empty glass and set it on my tray.

He looked up at me, staring into my eyes and I wondered how it was that so few people saw him for what he was. Human eyes just aren’t that blue. “Thank you, no,” he replied. I nodded at him, and then hustled my way back to the bar, dropping the sodden towel into the laundry basket and sitting the used cup in a rack of dirty glasses at the end of the bar that Andy was about to ferry to the kitchen.

“What was that about?” he asked.

I gave him a dark look. “I could ask you the same question,” I replied. He stared at me blankly for a moment, then grabbed the rack of glasses and disappeared into the kitchen. I was certain that he had something to do with the weird incident with the Other, but I had no idea what.

Ava came in at seven-thirty, the same time as Andy clocked off, and I could hear him talking himself into going over and sitting with her and her library friends. I bit back the words of encouragement that leapt to my tongue, still annoyed at him. Eventually he worked up the nerve to go over and say ‘hi’, to slide into the booth full of people he didn’t give two hoots about, just so he could be close to the girl he liked.

“It’s sweet enough to make your teeth rot,” Jo said by my side, the two of us watching Andy and Ava shoot glances at each other. I opened my mouth to reply as I turned away to scan the other patrons, but the words dried up on my tongue.

The Other was watching Andy and Ava too, without a shred of emotion on his face.


	3. Chapter 3

I was woken the next morning by the sound of Bobby cursing. I padded downstairs in my sleep shorts and a flannelette shirt to investigate, and found Bobby on his hands and knees, peering under the kitchen counter with a screwdriver gripped tightly in one hand.

“We got mice,” he said by way of explanation. Bobby is a pretty easygoing guy – gruff, sure, but he doesn’t waste energy hating people when he can just think they’re idiots and move on with his life. When his dogs had someone’s pet cat cornered in the car yard, he called them off so I could go and scoop it up (smart move, Bobby, let Sam get his hands torn up). Even though his dogs are strictly outside animals, to keep the critters and the odd group of teens looking to feel badass out of the way, he lets them inside to sleep in the laundry when it’s raining hard enough to make them howl.

But he really, really hates mice. He’s never told me why, and any explanatory thoughts on the matter live in a box in his head labelled ‘war memories’ that he barely cracks open.

“We got any traps?”

“No, those damn dogs are meant to stop them getting this far.”

I scratched my scalp, and yawned. “I’ll grab some after breakfast, if you want.”

Bobby looked up at me, and then seemed to realise that he was camped out on his own floor with the intention of braining a mouse with his good Philips head. “Right,” he said as he climbed to his feet. “I’ll get the coffee going.”

“Deal.”

I had toast with peanut butter for breakfast, showered and brushed my teeth, and then cycled into town. My bike is my main mode of transport. Bobby’s good about letting me use one of his cars if I’m running late or need to pick up the groceries. There’s one he sees as mine, but I just can’t accept a gift like that and he won’t let me buy it off him. His thinking is that Dean got given a car when Dad died, so why shouldn’t I get one from my surrogate family? As far as I’m concerned there’s a difference between getting a dead man’s car and mooching one off a live man. Death cooties, for one. So mainly I stick to my bike.

Bobby’s place is near the end of Flaherty’s Road, outside of Mortistow. There’s the saying in town that “Flaherty will get you nowhere”. Past Singer Salvage is a handful of small hobby farms, a vineyard that seems to be a tax break, and then a wide stretch of fields with not a person in sight. Heading towards town the road is rough and a little in need of some TLC. Once it hits town-proper, it turns into King Street, which runs parallel to Main Street. I’m not a fan of dealing with punctured tyres, so when I ride to work I go to King, then across Tindra Drive onto Main, and then back out toward the highway. Though some people (Dean) tease me for taking the long way to get anywhere, I like the exercise.

Wednesday is my other day off, so I rode leisurely into town, taking my time to enjoy the crisp morning air. We were half-way through spring, and while the air was still damp in the mornings and the nights were still cold, everything smelled alive and there were wild flowers and new growth everywhere. The Spring Dance would be soon, crammed somewhere into the last weeks of the season so the girls would be able to wear pretty dresses with minimal discomfort. Dean had always said the reason it wasn’t held in summer was so the girls had an excuse the ask the boys to protect them from the chill air, a task that any normal young lad would leap to.

You may have noticed, but I’m not that normal.

The pros and cons of being a mind-reading teenager. I knew there were other kids like me, well, like me in part – who appreciated firm muscle when they should have been eyeing off soft flesh (or vice versa), but I also knew just how scared they all were to say or do anything about it. Jess, who had been one of my few friends, had longed for university, a place where people could experiment and find out who they were. I’d known I’d never survive at college, and I didn’t see the point in burdening her with my own secrets. We hadn’t worked as a couple, but we’d been close friends after. She’d asked me to the Spring Dance in our final year, even though I was a high school dropout by the time it rolled around. I wonder sometimes if we would have worked out if I hadn’t been poking around inside her head so much.

My first job out of high school was doing some filing and typing for Isaac Lincoln, who was the town’s mix of counsellor, career advisor, and child psychologist. His wife Tamara was his secretary, but she had recently fallen pregnant with their second child, and was down to working three days a week. Karen had worked for him while she was alive, and I know Bobby had put in a good word for me when he found out someone was needed two days a week.

It had been Dad’s condition that if I wasn’t going to school, I had to get a job. I think he liked the idea of me doing something that he classed as intellectual. He knew I was smart and he figured that seeing everyone else I knew going off to college or finding their purpose would prompt me to do the same. Dad told himself that all of my problems were just stress related, that I’d been through a lot and lost my confidence.

Anyway, Isaac had wondered about me, and asked polite questions. He also had a caffeine addiction and adored the way I always knew when he needed a coffee. Eventually I told him that I had trouble keeping my head quiet, that thoughts just whirled around in it so fast and loud that I couldn’t focus on anything but thinking – half lies, I had learned by this point, were your friend. He taught me some meditation, some visualisation techniques. I got good enough at turning the volume of other people’s thoughts down that I was considering getting a second job at the supermarket or somewhere, saving up some money for god knows what. And then he’d suggested that I take a correspondence course, since I had so much free time. I could study at my leisure, which meant less stress. And I could study by myself.

They moved away a few months after the baby was born. They said they wanted another kid, and that sadly the high paying jobs were in the city. I think they were tired of being a black family in South Dakota, honestly, and I know their oldest had been teased for having an English accent like her parents despite having been born in America.

The new counsellor had an office at the high school, and didn’t need a secretary, so I got that job at the supermarket and filled shelves for a few years that were pretty unremarkable if you ignored Dad dying and me and Dean having a fight that lasted a good seven months. Then apparently Ellen had needed a new bar staff guy, and Ash had mentioned “That tall kid who does checkout on Fridays knows his classic rock.” So Ellen swung by one night, asked if I was old enough, and then told me that if I wanted a job that tipped well I should swing by one night and she’d show me the ropes. When she found out I was John Winchester’s boy, and the kid that was keeping Bobby’s books straight, that sealed the deal.

You gotta love small town nepotism.

I like to think that it was my ruminations on all of the chances I’d been given in life, rather than the fact that I’m a big softie, that lead me to buy the ‘animal friendly, non-lethal’ trap from the store. I guess there’s also the fact that I hate touching dead things.

With my one task achieved, I had no idea what to do with my day. I’d spent so much time thinking – or trying not to think – about the murders that I hadn’t made any plans. Dean would be at work, I hadn’t finished the last stack of books I’d borrowed from the library so there was no point in getting more, all of the other friends I had worked at The Roadhouse, which was a depressing realisation on its own. I grabbed a bag of chips and a chocolate bar, and decided I’d spend my day getting ahead on my Spanish study and lying in the sun watching youtube videos. Do I know how to have a wild time or what?

The afternoon saw me spread out on the back lawn, shirt off in the spring sun, still a little sweaty from my morning ride, and a little gritty from the cleaning I’d done when I got home. I lay on my stomach, my chin on crossed arms and listened to podcasts I’d achingly downloaded from Mr Fox’s website. A caller was asking what happened when an Other died, and Mr Fox was joking about it.

“We don’t smell half as bad as you do,” he said.

“Do you have funerals?”

“You know, there’s one thing I’ve never understood about human funerals. The day before, when everyone goes and looks at the body? Why do you do that? The amount of stuff you believe in every day life, but you have to go check that a person is really dead?”

“We don’t have the same kind of funerals,” he eventually answered. “Those closest will send out an apology for not knowing the person better, and then we all get on with it.”

They’d given Mr Fox co-hosts, a woman with a warm voice called Pamela and a jolly sounding guy who was a bit of a dude called Richie. “What do you believe happens when an Other dies?” Pamela asked.

“We return to the land of our birth and our essence fuels the fire that formed us,” Mr Fox said as if it were the obvious conclusion.

“So your idea of heaven is our idea of hell?” Richie asked.

“The Norse hell was an icy wasteland,” Pamela interjected.

“Hell is what you make of it,” Mr Fox said. “We all end up in the same place though, and become one with the flame until everything is burned away but our true essence. Then, our creator pulls us from the fire, and asks us a question.”

There was a long stretch of silence. “And?” Richie asked.

“And we answer it.”

“And then what happens?”

“It depends on what you answer.”

“Well, what’s the question?”

“It’s a secret.”

“What?”

“Only those who have died know the question.”

“So how do you know there is a question?”

“Those who have died have told us.”

“They..? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Look, for a guy with a picture of the Virgin Mary as the wallpaper on his phone, you’re being a touch hypocritical here.”

“But, I mean, she’s like a symbol and stuff now. She’s not always a real person, a real thing.”

Pamela made a humming sound. “Maybe the question is a symbol?” she suggested.

“Maybe,” Mr Fox agreed. “But you’d have to be a dead Other to find out what it was a symbol of.”

“You’re not interested in finding out for us?”

“Not at all.”

I hit pause as Bobby called me away, needing help to tip some old oil into a large drum for collection. Then I automatically grabbed a broom and started sweeping the floor of his workshop. Bobby always said he didn’t mind the dust and grass that got blown in, but Dad had trained me and Dean to be neat. For a long time I thought that a lot of Dad’s rules came from his time as a marine, but Bobby had been in the army too, and he seemed to thrive most when he was allowed to make a coordinated mess.

“When are you going to get a girlfriend?” he grumbled as I started hanging tools back up in their proper place. “You need to get out more. Stop messing up my garage.”

I grinned over my shoulder at him. “But Bobby, if I had a girlfriend, when would I get time to work on my tan?”

He rolled his eyes, and muttered some inventive things about pretty boys and what they could do with all those shirts they weren’t wearing. I could feel the warm undercurrent of easy concern though. Bobby wouldn’t be happy until Dean and I had found people to spend our lives with. Dean was at least finding people to spend the night with; Bobby worried that I spent too much time on my own.

I’d kind of resigned myself to just living on the fringes. Pretty girls and handsome boys held their attractions, but being close to new brains was stressful for me. It takes time to learn the patterns and tune them out. The first few busy nights at The Roadhouse almost drove me mad. And nothing sabotages a relationship quicker than the ability to read minds. I shook myself out of my thoughts, and grinned at Bobby. I tried to conjure up some of Dean’s bravado.

“Going out on a date just wouldn’t be right,” I said, copying my brother’s easy smile and cocked eyebrow. “Just think of all the hearts I’d break when people saw I was attached.”

“I bet tears would flow down the streets,” Bobby threw back sarcastically. “Cause flooding two counties over.”

“You see?” I said with mock seriousness. “I’m staying single for the good of the crops.”

Bobby snorted and shooed me out of his space with a broom to my heels. I laughed as I crossed the lawn towards the house, stopping to collect my laptop and sunglasses. A flash of colour caught my eye, something light against the dark, dusty paint of old cars, but when I turned to track it, it was gone. I told myself it was one of the dogs playing hide and seek, and headed inside.

That night I decided to try to call through to Mr Fox’s show. It was just a whim, and as I stood stirring milk through mashed potatoes over the stove with the kitchen phone held between my ear and my shoulder, its overtaxed cord stretched across the kitchen, I was caught unawares when I actually heard Pamela’s voice in my ear saying “Hello caller, you’re on the air.”

“Uh, hi,” I stammered. I guess my body sensed that I was about to sound like a fool on satellite radio, because it took over while my brain was still stammering and shuffling its feet. I had to listen back later to figure out what I actually asked. Apparently I said: “I have a question, and I hope it’s not offensive.”

“Oh,” Mr Fox replied, sounding eager. “I like the offensive questions.”

“Well, there’s an Other that comes into the bar where I work. He never knows what to order, and I’d really like to recommend something to him but I’ve read that you all have lots of food taboos, and don’t really eat at all.”

Pamela cut in before Mr Fox could. “Others don’t eat because there’s a finite volume of food their whole species can consume in a day, and Foxy here eats it all himself.”

“It’s true,” Mr Fox said. “I’m the food-tasting representative. Has he eaten anything so far?”

“He tried a pretzel, and a French fry, didn’t seem to like either. He’s also had some milk, and some water.”

“Wow,” Richie said. “This guy is living on the _edge_.”

“Sounds like he hasn’t been around people for very long,” Mr Fox said. “I’d suggest just plonking a chocolate sundae in front of him and let him figure out for himself that chocolate is clearly the greatest thing invented by man, except I tried that with Miss Snow and the results were not spectacular. Hmm. Do you have any bread-type things?”

“We do burgers, and pizzas. And French Toast on Saturday mornings.”

“That’s probably all a little complicated.”

“And they all have animal products,” I said. “Although he drank the milk.”

“We can eat animal products,” Mr Fox said. “You think I’m sitting here eating dairy-free m&ms? But it has to be collected without harm to the animal. So free range eggs are fine, a lot of milk is okay. We can even eat meat if the animal died of natural causes.”

“Does road kill count as natural?” Richie asked.

“… You’re disgusting. Not violent deaths.”

“How can you tell?” Pamela asked. “If the eggs are free range or the cow was already dead?”

“We can taste it,” Foxy replied. “And the taste of suffering makes us sad. But more products are okay than most people think. We’ve been around for a long time.”

“So, what, Others hold a secret monopoly in the milk and egg industries?”

“Well it’s sure not secret now that you’ve blabbed about it. _Thanks_ , Richie.”

“Thank you for your time, caller,” Pamela said smoothly over their bickering.

“Try toast!” Foxy called before I was disconnected. “No butter!”

~*~

Thursday evening was relaxed and easy. I spent most of my shift fussing around The Roadhouse, wrapping cutlery in paper napkins, making sure the floats were filled, polishing glasses. “You trying to tell me my dishwasher is playing up?” Ellen asked as I finished my third rack of glasses.

“Just keeping busy,” I replied.

“Uh-huh. Well why don’t you go keep busy looking after some customers? Table seven is looking especially neglected.”

I turned and looked, and somehow my Other had snuck in without me noticing. I checked to make sure my notepad was in the pocket of my apron, that my name badge didn’t say anything stupid, and pushed my bangs out of my face. “Hi,” I said brightly as I stepped up to his table. “Can I get you anything this evening?”

The Other made his usual sweep of the bar, observing the other patrons. Like always, he looked slightly perplexed. “What would you recommend?” he finally asked.

I smiled at him. “You know, I might have just the thing for you.” He stared at my face, and then smiled a cautious mimicry back. Most of the time I found the Other unfathomable, yet occasionally these moments shone through when he seemed to find the world around him so strange. His naiveté was kind of adorable. “You just wait right here.”

I leaned through the kitchen hatch and called out to Ash. “Hey, can you do me up some toast?”

“A la francais?”

“No,” I replied. “Just normal.”

“Who the hell eats normal toast?” he asked, but he slapped some bread on the grill and went back to singing to himself.

I carried the hot toast over to the Other with my tray held high. “Let me know if you like it,” I said, sliding the plate over to him. Then I added a little tray that held packets of whipped butter, strawberry jam, and marmalade.

“Is it important that I enjoy it?” he asked.

“Well, sure. If you do, then I can think of other things for you to try. And if you don’t, I can go yell at our cook for screwing up something as simple as toast.”

The Other looked over in the direction of the kitchen, and Ash gave him some rock ‘n’ roll horns in greeting. The Other looked back to me, something like uncertainty on his face. I gave him an encouraging smile, and set a glass of water down.

Dean had come in while I was busy. In true Dean fashion, he’d noticed that I was too occupied to go talk to him, but hadn’t bothered to notice what exactly I was occupied with. The woman he was with had. Cassie Robinson wrote for the Sioux Falls general newspaper; Dean was sure that she was too smart for him. When I finally made it over to their booth, she raised an eyebrow at me.

“That fellow come in often?” she asked.

“Couple nights a week,” I replied.

Dean aimed a lofty look at her. “What? You planning on trading me in already?”

She smiled at his joke, though I sent Dean a small frown in response to the very real insecurity I sensed in him. “What, a girl can’t inquire about a news item these days without invoking jealousy?” She saw Dean’s blank look, and leaned over the table towards him. “He’s an _Other_ ,” she explained.

Dean looked over at table seven, where the Other had a small square of dry toast on his fork, holding it up in front of his face and examining it. Most of the people in the bar watching him had assumed that he was simple, Dean included. “Huh,” he finally said. Having no real interest in that topic, Dean smirked up at me. “So, Sammy, when are you going to stop sitting at home alone? Bobby’s getting worried about you. And if the old man’s getting worried about you spending time alone, well, that’s one concerned pot to your kettle.”

“I won’t be home alone next weekend,” I said, giving Dean a sickly sweet smile. I turned to Cassie. “You’ll be coming, right?”

“Oh sure,” she said. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” She turned to Dean with a sharp smile on her face. “What exactly is it we’re going to, again?”

Dean shot me a dirty look, and I left him to tell her about Bobby’s not-exactly-a-surprise birthday celebration. I don’t know why he hadn’t invited her straight out. The more Dean liked a girl, the more likely he was to cut her out of his life. It drove me nuts sometimes, but as I was filling a pitcher of beer for them, Cassie caught my eye and gave me a wink. She didn’t seem like the kind of girl to let Dean play games for long.

“You ever going to man up and invite your own girl along?” Dean groused at me, sulky and not willing to let me go without some shaming of my own.

“Or a boy?” Cassie asked, and ignored the raised eyebrows Dean gave her.

“Sure,” I said, leaning a shoulder on the back of Dean’s side of the booth and grinning easily at her. I amped up what little small-town charm I had, and the Kansas accent I’d learned from my dad came shining through. “You got a brother with a smile as pretty as yours?”

She laughed then, white teeth framing a loud, confident chuckle. Dean liked girls with strong laughs, and I could feel the mix of his irritation at me and his fondness for her. I clapped Dean on the shoulder, and headed off to look after some more tables.

I got caught up on doing the rounds, delivering food and fetching drinks, so it was more than an hour before I checked on the Other again. He’d eaten half a piece of toast, and had opened the packet of jam. His fork and knife were set neatly across the plate, signalling that he was done.

“What did you think?” I asked as I set my tray on the edge of his table, shuffling empty glasses around so I would have room for the plate.

“Dry,” he said at last. “Crisp. It tasted like the air in here smells.”

I glanced over at him with a smile. “That’s because the air smells like the grill, and that’s exactly what Ash cooked your toast on.”

“Are there other ways to cook toast?”

“Sure,” I said, straightening up. “Most people use a toaster, though I like to do it in the griller part of the oven with some cheese melting on top. I went camping once with my dad and brother, and we stuck bread on sticks and toasted it over a fire.”

He looked oddly enthralled, considering the subject matter. “Does the mode of preparation change the result?”

“Sure, I guess. Toast on the grill tastes like whatever else you have on there. Toast from a campfire smells like smoke. And then it also depends on how long you cook it, it what type of bread, if you like spread…” I trailed off as I noticed his face. He looked a little overwhelmed.

“Toast is more complicated than I had initially thought.”

I would never describe toast as complicated, but I guess to someone who didn’t seem to eat much at all, it could be a little tricky. “Did you like the toast?”

After a moment, he nodded. “It was not challenging.”

I couldn’t help smiling at him. As mysterious and perplexing as Others appeared to be, I was amused by his relief to find something simple and manageable. I had no idea how long this Other had been alive, how long since he had been around people, or if this was his first time out in the big, scary world.

“Are you planning on sticking around tonight?” I asked. “Sample some of the other enjoyments available in this fine establishment?”

He looked around. “What else is there?”

“Well, you could go put some songs on the jukebox, or play a game of pool, or drink a beer.” I didn’t suggest he talk to a girl or make some more friends. Selfish, I know, but I never claimed to be perfect.

He looked at the pool table without any sign of comprehension, and I felt sorry for him. I wondered if he came to The Roadhouse simply because he didn’t have anything else to do, if one recommendation for how to spend his evenings had been made to him and he followed it because nothing else had occurred to him. I spotted Dean heading to the jukebox, and I pulled the Other to his feet. “Come on,” I said as he paused to toss some notes on the table.

I lead him over and introduced my brother to him. “Dean, can you talk this guy through the jukebox? You know everything on there.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “You want ACDC or Van Halen?” he asked, like they were the only two choices.

“What’s a Van Halen?” the Other asked.

Dean stared at him in shock for a moment, and then his almost obsessive need to educate people about the value of classic rock kicked in. I left the Other in good hands, and felt warm inside at the idea of seeing him some more. I headed back to the bar, snagging the money off the table as I went. I stopped at the till and counted it over. Then counted it again. He’d left far more money than was required to cover toast and a complimentary glass of water.

“You’re doing well out of that one,” Ash called as he watched me count through my tip.

“Maybe I should pull him aside,” I replied. “Make sure he knows how money works. I don’t want him getting ripped off.”

Ash thrust his spatula in my face, making me jump. “Sammy-boy,” he said seriously. “When someone comes in, and regularly gives you tips that are three times your hourly wage, it is your goddamned duty as a customer service assistant to milk that money train for all that it is worth.”

“But-”

“He’s right, honey,” Ellen cut in, shouldering me aside so she could fill two pitchers of beer at once. “You turn down tips like that and I’m giving your job to someone with more sense.” I pulled a face at both of them, before stacking my tray high with food fresh off the grill and uniting hungry men with burgers that were only slightly charred.

To my relief, the Other was still in the bar when I clocked off at eight. Andy had come in at seven-thirty and Ava had come in shortly after that, sitting at a table with two of her girl friends. The two of them traded glances and shy smiles every so often, and I expected that when it quietened down the two friends would take their leave and Andy would do his best to entertain Ava between pouring drinks.

I headed over to Dean’s booth with a large bowl of salad with some chicken in it and a tall glass of Coke. “That’s a manly dinner you have there, Sammy,” Dean teased, tossing a chip from his own plate into my bowl. I fished it out, and threw it back at him. Cassie snatched it out of his lap and crammed it in her mouth, putting an end to our food fight. I sat down beside the Other, and he shifted to make room for me, folding the ends of his coat neatly over his lap.

Dean jabbed another French fry at the Other. “Can you believe this guy has never listened to an Iron Maiden album?”

“Really? It must be hard for you, Dean, being around someone with decent taste in music.”

Dean pulled a face at me, and I tucked into my dinner to the ebb and flow of conversation. Cassie was a natural journalist, though I knew she was holding back out of politeness. They had been in the middle of a conversation about what music he knew when I had arrived. I learned that he wasn’t very familiar with human music, though oddly enough the tunes he did know were from the Second World War period, regimental anthems and “We’ll meet again” and such. That lead to Cassie asking if that was when he’d last been around humans, and he confirmed it was the case.

“Have there been many Others in the armed forces?”

“Yes,” he replied simply. “Most of our kind have fought in one war or another. Humans have them so often.”

“Why not just sit out?” Dean asked. He sounded casual, but there was a defensive streak thrumming just below the surface. Dean would readily admit that he didn’t understand most wars, but he wouldn’t tolerate anything that even sounded like an insult against soldiers, against Dad.

“Sometimes it’s curiosity,” the Other replied on behalf of his species. “It has been so long since we have had a war all of our own. It can be camaraderie, for those who lived among humans who were affected by conflict. Often it’s mere convenience.”

“Convenience?” Dean repeated, disbelief evident on his face. When you grow up surrounded by veterans, one thing you learn is that war is never convenient.

The Other didn’t elaborate though, and while I could hear the questions Cassie was dying to ask loud and clear, she changed the subject back to music, asking if Others had music of their own, what it sounded like.

“The last time a human heard one of our choirs, their ears bled until they died,” the Other said flatly.

“I’ve been to concerts where that’s happened,” Dean said with a smile on his face and a faraway look in his eyes.

“Aside from that unpleasantness, the performance was highly regarded,” the Other continued.

“Don’t take offense if we don’t ask you to join our karaoke team,” Cassie said with a sly smile. The Other clearly had no idea what she was talking about, so I bent my head close to his to explain.

“Hey, Sam,” Dean said once the basics were outlined. “’Nother pitcher of beer.”

“Go get it yourself,” I volleyed back.

Dean mimicked me with a squeaky voice, but edged past Cassie and sauntered up to the bar. I tracked him with my mind, checking to make sure he wasn’t miffed at me for whatever reason. I heard him complain to Ellen about her staff getting sassy with him, and heard Ellen shoot some sass right back at him, making me smile out of context with the actual conversation I was meant to be having. The Other stared at me openly, and Cassie looked back and forth between us, picking up that something was off.

“Soooo,” I said, trying to right myself socially. “Cassie, tell us something about yourself?”

I knew she was from out of town, but she filled me in on where she grew up, her family, where she did her degree and her first internship, which was over in Missouri so she could be close to her family.

“What about you?” she asked. “Dean tells me you’re the bright one of the family.”

I looked down at my half-eaten salad. “Nah,” I said, feeling uncomfortable. “I just like to read.”

“We talking about those boring-ass books you love, genius?” Dean asked as he delivered two pitchers of beer to the table, glasses for me and the Other held to his side with one arm. Cassie shifted over, making room for him at the edge of the bench seat. “Sammy’s done just about every course there is through that college in the city.” Considering there are about 20 colleges in the Sioux Falls Metropolitan area, that was one hell of a vague statement. Nice to know Dean pays attention. “He’s done science, politics, philosophy, a buttload of English, pre-law…”

Cassie looked over at me, her eyebrows raised to show that she was impressed.

“It’s not a big deal,” I said, hunkering down in my seat. “I do it by correspondence, it’s not like I’m going to get a real degree out of it or anything.”

“Don’t know why the hell not,” Dean shot back. “You could get out of here like you always planned to.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah? And who would bring you burgers and beer then?” I asked, trying to lighten the tone.

“Someone with better legs,” Dean shot back easily.

“Sam lacks adequate legs?” the Other asked in his rough, flat voice, staring down at my denim-clad thighs. He had impeccable timing for someone who didn’t understand that he’d made a joke, looking at us in confusion as Dean roared with laughter and Cassie rested her shoulder against my brother’s arm to hide her own chuckles. Even I split a grin, partly due to the rhythm of the conversation, and partly because Dean and Cassie made a good couple, both of their eyes crinkled at the corners with laughter, Dean’s arm draped loosely around her shoulders.

“Sam has lovely legs,” Cassie assured the Other, who was back to looking at my thighs as if they were some new, fascinating thing. He reached out with a finger to poke the denim, and I flexed my muscle making the material shift. He pulled back, a little surprised, and that made Dean laugh all over again.

Dean finally calmed down enough to pour out a round of beer, and pushed a glass in front of each of us. He raised his own to his shoulder height. “To Sam,” he said with far too much ceremony, “and his stupidly long legs that he can’t keep over on his own damn side of the table.” I pulled a face at Dean, and kicked him in the knee.

“You mean he’s playing footsie with you, too?” Cassie asked, all innocent confusion. She turned to me and narrowed her eyes, giving me as much of a smoulder as she could manage with a smile tugging at her lips. “Sam Winchester, you incorrigible flirt.”

“Flirt?” the Other asked. I got the feeling he was struggling to keep up with the conversation as it bounced around.

“Flirt!” Dean repeated, and we all raised our glasses and took a drink, the Other following suit half a beat behind. I looked over at him to see how he liked beer. He was moving his tongue around inside his mouth, licking at his gums and trying to chase the flavour.

“Do you like it?”

He made a face. “It’s not very pleasant,” he concluded. “I prefer milk.”

“No,” Dean said. “No, no, no. Beer is way better than milk. Here, you’re just not used to it yet.” He motioned for the Other to take another drink. “Actually, you should finish the whole glass. It takes a while to warm up to it.”

The Other raised the glass to those perfect lips of his, and drank it down at a calm, sedate pace. Just tilted his head back further and further until it was completely gone in one, long drink. He shifted his mouth, comparing the taste left behind in his mouth.

“I still don’t like it,” he reported. “Did I do something wrong?”

“Some people never like the taste of beer,” Cassie told him. She reached over and patted his hand. “It’s probably for the best, beer’s not very healthy for you.”

“Then why drink it?” the Other asked as Dean topped up his glass.

“Drink this one down too,” Dean instructed. “Then you’ll find out.”

I pulled a face at my brother for trying to get my friend drunk – I could hear loud and clear that he thought the Other was stiff and boring, and that there could be some entertainment found in getting him drunk and disorderly – but the Other was already tilting his head back and drinking the beer down in the same calm, orderly fashion he’d demolished his first serve.

He shifted in his seat as Dean poured him another glass, angling his body towards my brother. His knee ended up pressed against my thigh, and I realised that this evening was the first time we’d ever touched. His leg felt warm, and solid, and human as anything, but somehow it still sent a thrill down me, some innate physical reaction to being in contact with something so different. I watched as he finished his fourth beer – I was halfway through my first – and took a moment to study the glow that surrounded him. It had no colour, and offered no illumination, but I could see it and as he put his glass down on the table and turned to look at me, I could see it pulse brighter, just for a moment, the light and heat of it flaring around his head. I turned away, and took several mouthfuls of my own beer.

Dean seemed put out by the Other’s ability to hold his alcohol. Dean’s thoughts weren’t exactly crystal clear, but I could pick up that he thought the Other was wasted and hiding it well. To my extreme embarrassment, Dean cajoled the Other into taking sobriety tests. His attempt to recite the alphabet backwards was deemed unacceptable because, “That’s not the alphabet.”

It took me a while to figure it out, but I think he was reciting a much older version. You’d think that ‘a’ would have been ‘a’ for all eternity, but that’s not how it works. Maybe he was saying the alphabet in Latin (my Latin grades hadn’t been spectacular), then I _know_ he did the Greek alphabet. Whatever one he ran through next had some weird vowel sounds, so I think it might have been Scandinavian.

“None of those are real alphabets,” Dean accused. “You’re making them up.”

“I’m not,” the Other insisted flatly.

“You can’t get any of them right.”

“They are all correct.”

“Not just any gibberish can pass as an alphabet, you know.”

Cassie nudged Dean with her shoulder. “There’s more than enough gibberish coming out of your mouth.”

“Come on,” Dean goaded. “Do the _real_ alphabet.”

The Other narrowed his eyes, and started once more. The sounds that fell from his lips were rough and harsh, they shot right through me and set off all kinds of instincts. _Run, fight, fuck,_ all at once. It was like his voice was electricity and I was a circuit that had never before been used; he lit me up. “ _Teth, cheth, zaïn, vau…_ ” The sounds made me shiver, and the hair on my arms stand up, and the lights around us flicker. The Other trailed off, and us three humans were left sitting there, stunned and uncertain. I don’t know what exactly he’d said, but it had been very old, and very powerful.

“Look,” Dean said at last, the first of us to regain our composure, “maybe you should just try standing on one leg and touching your nose?”

Eventually Ellen came over to see what all the ruckus was about, and to cut us off. “Don’t you take that tone with me, Dean Winchester,” She said, hands on hips. “You’ve all been through four pitchers of beer in the last hour, and don’t forget the drinks you two had with dinner.”

“I didn’t drink it all!”

“I don’t care if you tipped it out the window so my petunias can have a party. I’ve got a responsibility to my patrons and if you all wrap yourselves around a tree on the way home, I get some of the blame.”

Dean eyed off my second beer, which was mostly untouched, and I pulled it towards my body protectively. “Can we have a pitcher of Coke then?” I asked. Ellen ruffled my hair and gave me a fond look.

“If any of you four pukes, it’s Sam cleaning it up tomorrow,” she warned.

“Well,” Dean said with a grin, “now _there’s_ some incentive.” As soon as Ellen was gone, he made a lunge for my beer. I held it up above my head and gave him a stern look, before lowering it just enough for me to take a long drink. I didn’t trust him not to try for it again – Dean was in a playful mood, and he’s never been above causing me some trouble – so I had no recourse but to finish it off. The beer sat warm and happy in my stomach; the Other’s shoulder was firm and solid against my bicep; my brother was cheerful and content. I thought the evening was perfect.

Cassie interrupted my thoughts. “That,” she said, gesturing to the bar, “is too cute for words.”

I looked over, and saw Andy wiping down the bar and Ava sitting neatly on a stool across from him. Andy would say something and Ava would duck her head and smile. Ava would reply, and Andy would look away to hide how thrilled he was by her. I had to agree, they were impossibly cute.

“Ah, young love,” Dean said dramatically. “Take some notes, Sammy. This may be the closest you’ll ever get to having a girlfriend.”

I pulled a face at Dean, suddenly annoyed at his constant teasing. “I can assure you that stalking my friends and taking notes will pretty much ensure that I _never_ get a girlfriend. Maybe no one told you this, but creepers are going out of style.”

“And here I was just about to plant one by our porch,” Dean threw back, deliberately misunderstanding me.

“They are like you,” the Other said suddenly. I had to backpedal mentally, and get myself back on topic.

“Sure,” I said easily. “I went to school with Ava, she was a year above me. And Andy and I both work here.”

“Ava sure got cute for a creepy chick,” Dean observed.

“Ava was never creepy.”

“Sure she was. Her sister, Carly, was in my year. Ava used to creep everyone out by telling ghost stories. The cool thing though, was that she’d do all this hocus pocus, you know? Rolling her eyes back in her head and pretending to have a fit, and she’d make all of this stuff up about the spirits of the house or whatever. And according to Carly, sometimes shit would move.”

“That doesn’t mean Ava’s creepy,” I said. “It just means that Carly’s a scaredy-cat with an overactive imagination.”

Dean shrugged. “Carly had to stop having sleepovers because Ava would scare all of her friends. And no one would go to a party at their place.”

“That’s because if you wanted to party, you all went out to the fields by the Jenkins place and got hammered,” I countered.

Dean shrugged again, not denying it, but not backing down either. I turned to clue the Other into some of the finer details, but paused. His expressions had gotten easier and more familiar throughout the night, but now his face had shut down again. He stared at Andy and Ava unflinchingly, the way one of the dogs will stare at a rabbit hole, waiting for the prey to shoot out. He noticed me staring, and his eyes flicked to mine. For a moment, he looked troubled.

“Look at the time,” Cassie said, before draining her drink. “I gotta get going. Some of us have respectable jobs to go to tomorrow morning.”

“Are you saying my job’s not respectable?” Dean asked as he slid out of the booth.

“Not the way you do it,” Cassie said. “I saw you sleeping in your car the other day instead of toiling out there for our county’s roads. I’m tempted to write an editorial about it.”

“Do journalists make a lot? Because I think I could handle being a kept man. You know, if I happened to get fired for unrelated reasons. And I was not sleeping.”

“Just resting your eyes?” Cassie suggested with a sweet smile.

Dean grumbled, but pulled her close and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Catch you later, Sammy,” he said before heading toward the door. Cassie gave me a wave, and informed the Other that it had been a pleasure talking with him, and headed off with her car keys in her hand. Dean had to be pretty sweet on her if he was letting her drive.

Which left me fighting off a yawn, and sitting next to the Other who was looking stiff and withdrawn. “I guess I’d better go too,” I said, a little sadly.

The Other nodded, but didn’t say anything.

“Perhaps we can hang out again sometime?”

The Other looked up at me, wide blue eyes that were deep and dark. Humans could never have eyes that blue, I was sure of it. His hair looked dark and wild, and surrounded by his glow he looked timeless, godlike. I swallowed thickly, and he looked away without answering. I took that as my cue to leave, climbing to my feet a little unsteadily. I wasn’t drunk, not on beer at least, but I was all jumbled up inside. I clambered to my feet and stepped away from the booth, leaving the Other behind. As soon as I did, I was bombarded with the thoughts of everyone around me.

Usually I don’t drink in public because the alcohol makes it harder for me to keep my walls up. I thought it hadn’t affected me tonight – in the booth I’d only been troubled by Dean’s thoughts, and that was because I knew him so well. Dean would always be the clearest stream of consciousness in the room. Now it seemed that it all hit me at once, like whatever had been holding them back was stripped away. I stumbled towards Ellen’s office to collect my jacket and wallet, glad to get away from the voices pounding on my brain. I slumped against the wall in the quiet hallway, and squeezed my eyes shut, slowly trying to reconstruct my defences. A hand landed on my arm, and I practically jumped out of my skin.

“Woah, sorry,” Chuck said, backing up and holding his hands up. “You just weren’t looking so flash.”

“’m okay,” I said, bringing a hand up to my face. “I just got a bit dizzy. Dean says it’s because I’m so tall…” I was blathering, talking to keep Chuck distracted while I carefully blocked him out.

“Listen, if you’re not feeling well, I could drive you home?” I hesitated. “I’ve been on soda all night, you can check at the bar.”

I looked Chuck over. He was sober, that was certain, and I did feel so very tired. “Let me check on my bike,” I said, and pushed away from the wall. In all honesty, I intended to unlock the bike chain, hop on, and ride away without another word. But as I couched down beside my bike, I felt a prickle at the back of my neck, like I was being watched. I turned around and straightened up. Was that movement at the back of the lot? Were those shadows between the trees, or something else?

Suddenly the murders sprang up in my mind. Chuck knew something about them, that was sure, but I was pretty convinced that I could take him in a fight. And I was very, very certain that I would be safer in a car on a dark night than riding down a deserted road on my own.

I stepped back into the hall, and was relieved to see Chuck still there, peering worriedly at me. “She’s all locked up,” I said with a smile that wasn’t at all genuine. “Let’s go.” As we walked through the bar I mimed to Ellen that I was getting a ride home because I had a headache, and waved bye to Ava and Andy. The Other was gone, but that didn’t surprise me. It was amazing he’d stuck around as long as he had.

Chuck drove me home in silence. I could feel that he was anxious about something, but I was busy going through my exercises, locking my brain down against invading thoughts. And anyway, just because I had an insight into people’s heads didn’t mean that what went on there was any of my business. Then it occurred to me that I kind of thought that Chuck was connected to some murders, and that now would probably be a good time to break that rule. I guess that shows you how out of sorts I was. It felt like I had been rudely awoken from a deep sleep, and hadn’t quite managed to adjust to the real world yet.

Chuck was worried because he had something to tell me, but he didn’t know how to explain what he knew, or how I would react. A lot of people thought Chuck was weird, so he wasn’t as worried about that side of things as I usually was. I got the impression that this was like some big, deep secret that he’d never told anyone, that he’d never had to put words to before. I sat up a little straighter in my seat. Maybe Chuck really was like me, gifted in some way.

“Thanks for driving me home,” I said to break the silence.

“It’s… it’s not big deal.” He tightened his hands on the steering wheel, and then relaxed them. “With all the crazy stuff going on. Murders, people going missing-”

“People are going missing?” Chuck glanced at me, and I shrugged. “I’m kind of behind on the papers,” I explained.

Chuck chewed on his bottom lip, making his scruffy beard shift. “They think it might be connected, that none of these missing people are going to turn up.” I could feel big waves of worry rolling around his head. Not just worry; he was scared. “Anyway,” he said, forcing his voice to be light. “With things the way they are, I worry about you kids. You ride all the way out here in the middle of the night. Andy lives in his van. That’s not exactly great security, you know. And I’ve seen that girl from the library-”

“Ava,” I supplied.

“Right, her. I’ve seen her walking home.” Chuck tightened his hands again, and it took him a little longer to relax. _Fear fear fear_ was filling him up. I could feel his cravings for a drink, for a distraction. “You should tell them to be careful,” he said, his voice quavering a little. He paused to clear his throat. “You should all be careful.”

He pulled into Bobby’s long driveway, his little yellow car jerking to a stop a few feet from the house. I gave Chuck a warm smile, tried to project that there was nothing to worry about. “Hey man,” I said, “thanks for the drive.” I clapped him warmly on the shoulder, and as soon as I touched him, his thoughts rocketed into my head. I burst out of the car and stumbled up to the porch, putting the wooden railing between me and Chuck. I stood there, panting, staring at him. He looked back at me with large, baleful eyes. There was an incredible sadness in them, and as I tried to sort through the images I’d picked up from Chuck’s mind, I realised why.

His thoughts were full of blood, and wide gasping mouths, and sharp cruel blades. And among all of those young, dying faces, I recognised my own.

Chuck reversed down the driveway, and into the night. After a long moment of gasping, I forced myself to move, to get out of the open. I realised that I’d left my keys at work, and my heart almost exploded as I fumbled around inside the doghouse by the side of the house for the spare key. Harper licked my hand sleepily, and the shock of her wet tongue nearly scared me to death. I finally got inside, and locked the front door behind me.

I spent the night lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. How could such a fun night have ended so badly? I tried to focus on the time spent with Dean and Cassie, with the Other pressed warm against my side and smiling at jokes he didn’t quite understand, but my mind kept going back to the way he stared at Andy and Ava, that closed, sad look on his face before I left. What did any of it mean? Did he not like humans? Had I done something wrong? I was almost glad for the excuse to get up when the phone rang at around six in the morning. It was Andy, calling from the hospital.

Ava had been stabbed.


	4. Chapter 4

I tried to compile a list of things to do in my head. The police would have called Ava’s family, but her housemates might not be in the loop just yet – the phone book was downstairs. I would head over and collect some things for her. Between making the call and heading out myself, I fried up some bacon and eggs, crammed them into some bread rolls and wrapped them up. Ava lived on the West side of Mortistow, and had been taken to the Edenburg local hospital, which is just on the other side of Route 29. I had no idea if it had a 24/7 cafeteria, and I figured Andy could use some nourishment. I scrounged around in Bobby’s desk for the spare keys to the car I borrowed occasionally, and headed out as the sun was coming up.

I couldn’t decide whether or not it was strange that Andy had called me. We were friendly, but we weren’t close. We’d never hung out together outside of work. Andy seemed to have a lot of friends like that, people he’d stop and talk to as he went from place to place, but no one he’d make plans with. No one until Ava. On the other hand, calling our boss would have been overstepping his bounds, Jo was currently living with Ellen, and Ash was famous for never answering his phone. The only other regular staff member was Lisa, but she was a number of years older than us – a single mom with a kid.

I was at the hospital within fifteen minutes, a pink bag with a change of clothes and probably some bathroom stuff for Ava, and one of the bacon and egg rolls sitting a little heavily in my stomach. I wasn’t allowed in to see her, but a nurse took the bag from me and placed it in Ava’s room, and I could see her father sitting by her bed. I handed Andy his breakfast, and we wordlessly headed outside, leaning against the warm hood of my car as he ate.

He’d sounded completely wrecked on the phone, and had been wringing his wrists when I first showed up, but slowly he was settling. As worried as I was about Ava, I couldn’t help feeling joyful that she was alive, that she would be okay. And I felt a mix of warm, unnamed things at the very living presence of Andy beside me.

“I can’t tell you much,” Andy said, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his hooded jumper. Most of his clothes were baggy, but for the first time he looked small, like he was wearing a big brother’s clothes. “The police will want to talk to you, probably. I mean, you were at the bar. You know everyone.” He turned and looked at me with brown eyes the colour of chocolate. “That’s what they do on TV, right?”

I nodded. “Yup,” I said.

“I don’t want to get in trouble for telling you stuff. Influencing you or whatever.” He stared morosely at his roll for a long moment, and then seemed to remember that it was food. He took a big old bite out of it, and mumbled around his food. “But Ava will be okay. It was her arm, not anything important. I mean, an arm is important and all but, you know. She’ll live.”

I bumped my shoulder against Andy, and he leaned into the warmth. “Can I borrow your bike?” he asked suddenly.

“Sure,” I replied. “It’s at the bar, and so’s the key for the lock. Wait, why do you need my bike? What happened to your van?”

Andy sighed, and a piece of egg stuck to his lip for a moment before he licked it away. “They confiscated it,” he said. “I drove her to the hospital, and apparently they need to investigate all the bleeding she did on the seat.” Suddenly he was worried again, and I picked up from his thoughts that he had dope in his van.

“That’s a bitch,” I said. Then, with false brightness I added, “I hope they don’t get her blood mixed up with the blood of those three hookers you killed.”

Andy snorted a laugh, and then coughed as parts of his sandwich entered tubes that were never designed to handle bacon and eggs. I patted him on the back, and for an instant it was a normal moment, two guys laughing in a parking lot.

“Feel like letting me in on the joke, boys?” a stiff voice asked.

I looked up into the unsmiling eyes of Detective Henrickson. “Just some gallows humour, sir.” I said, composing myself quick smart.

He raised an eyebrow at me, the movement somehow making his face even scarier. “Why?” He drawled. “You got a feeling you’re gonna hang?”

I swallowed nervously, and shook my head. Henrickson turned his attention to Andy. “We’re gonna need you down at the station now.”

“Detective Henrickson?” I asked. “Do you know how long you’ll be? Andy was going to borrow my bike until he gets his van back.” It occurred to me suddenly that Andy didn’t have a place to live, not unless the police were willing to let him sleep in his impounded van. I thought that was unlikely. “Can he get clothes or anything out?” I turned to Andy. “You let me know if you need a place to stay.”

Henrickson was staring at me with his mouth pressed into a thin line. “Why don’t you swing by around eight?” he said. “If we’re not done with this fine young citizen,” he clapped his hand on Andy’s shoulder, and Andy sank a little under the force, “I’m sure one of my officers can keep you busy.” He was going to question me, I knew that without a doubt. I didn’t know what use I could be, but Henrickson was trying not to alarm me, which only made me all the more cautious.

“Sure thing,” I said with a smile that didn’t reach my eyes. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

I mooched around for a while once Andy was gone. Drinking hospital coffee, filling in a ‘get well soon’ card for Ava, asking the nurses when she would be fit for visitors and passing that information on to her housemates. At seven-thirty I called Ellen, and asked if she could open the bar a little early so I could get my bike. She said that she was there anyway, going through some paperwork. I waited until I was there in person to tell her that Andy was with the police.

“I bet he’s all shook up,” she said with a concerned frown, the mother in her shining through for a rare moment. “He’s meant to be doing the open. Any chance you can cover for him?” Then I had to admit that I was going in for questioning shortly myself. Ellen rolled her eyes. “Maybe I should call that policeman up and get him to send over two rookies. If he’s stealing my staff it’s only fair that I get some of his.”

I had to laugh at that. “I’ll suggest a trade when I see him next.” Ellen smiled, and slapped me playfully on the arm. I could see her working out her plan of attack for the morning, already giving up on the things she couldn’t control and focussing on what she could.

I left my car at the bar and rode my bike to the station. It wouldn’t be too far to walk, and if I got stuck there for a time I could probably mooch a ride back to work. Of course, turning up at work in a police car is generally frowned upon, but I figured it was better to turn up in a blue-and-white than to be escorted away in one.

I wheeled my bike inside the station and left it propped across from the front desk. I nodded a greeting to Deputy Jodie Mills. She worked for the Lincoln Sheriff’s office, and had grown up in this south-eastern corner of the state, unlike Henrickson. She shopped at the supermarket where I had worked, she drank with her sister at The Roadhouse, and her husband had coached me in track for a few years.

Sheriff Fuller was getting on in years; while his mind hadn’t dulled his enthusiasm for the job certainly had. Too many winters spent standing in the snow staring at car accidents and too many summers in which elderly people had died in their homes and hadn’t been missed until someone noticed the stink. It was general knowledge that Jodie did the legwork these days, and I was confident that if Sheriff John ever got the energy to retire, she’d be elected without even needing to campaign.

“Sam Winchester, is that you?” she asked, peering up at me. “You’ve gotten so tall!” She must see me every second month, so I knew she wasn’t really surprised. I think she liked reminding people that she was older than she looked.

“Mornin’ ma’am,” I replied. “I mean, _Deputy_.”

She smiled slyly at me. “I’ll let you off with a warning for that, just this once.”

I grinned at her. “Much obliged.”

Deputy Mills laughed. “You got no right using that Texas charm on me, young man. I know you’ve been out here since you were knee high.”

I leaned close, and whispered conspiratorially, “It’s a double-bluff,” I said, laying the accent on extra-thick, “since I’m from Kansas anyway. But don’t you-all tell anyone.”

She narrowed her eyes at me, and nodded as if some terrible suspicion had been concerned. “I see. A double agent all along.” I shrugged dramatically, my long arms splaying out awkwardly, an exaggerated ‘what can you do?’ type expression on my face, and she pursed her lips as she tried to keep from laughing at me.

I dipped into her mind then, wanting to know if I could afford to lower my guard around her. She was thinking that I was cute, that I might be too young for her sister but she should nudge her in my direction anyway, that she didn’t know if the rumours about me being crazy were true.

“Detective Henrickson should be out soon, if you don’t mind waiting,” she said in an easy voice, though it was clear that she was a deputy and I was a citizen, and that the invitation to wait wasn’t one that I would be able to turn down.

“Sure thing, Deputy,” I said, sitting down on the low bench in the waiting area and trying not to sprawl out too much. She gave me a last, fond look before busying herself with paperwork. Her last coherent thought about me was, _‘I hope he doesn’t know anything.’_

It was a worrying thought to hear, but I had just resolved to take that recommendation to heart when Andy walked out from the back of the police station, looking drawn and exhausted. He gave me a weak smile when he saw me, and I unfolded myself up off the bench. We weren’t anywhere near close enough to warrant a hug, and I wasn’t so formal as to try and shake his hand. I gripped his bicep, and gave it a squeeze. Andy was wearing too many layers for me to get any unwanted transmissions, so to speak, but he gave me a grateful smile and it was genuine enough. Then Andy was wheeling my bike out the door and it was my turn.

I spent the short walk to the interview room debating with myself about the merits of listening in to the detective’s thoughts. On the one hand, I was desperate to know what he really wanted out of me, what he thought I might know. On the other hand, listening in intentionally had a long history of getting me into trouble, and from what I knew of Henrickson he would be deeply untrusting if he knew of my ability.

“Do I need a lawyer or anything?” I asked as he opened the door and ushered me in. “Are you going to tape this, or do you have some electronic recorders now?”

“You don’t need a lawyer,” he replied. “You’re not arrested, you’re not in trouble, this won’t be recorded. And yes, we use electronic recording devices now.”

“Oh,” I said, sliding awkwardly into the metal chair. The door to the interview room was still open, and that made me breathe a little easier. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

Henrickson took the long way around in his questioning. He asked me about The Roadhouse, how long I’d worked there, what shifts I usually worked, about each of the staff, if there were any regulars. He asked about Andy, vague questions like whether we were friends, what I thought of him, if he was a good worker, how good I thought his memory was. I answered as truthfully as I could, and took care to think carefully before I made any statements about a person’s character.

He asked me about Ava, and I told him that I mainly knew her from the library as we hadn’t had much to do with each other at school. He asked about her and Andy, whether they had been friends long, if I thought they were dating, if I knew if either of them had been in other relationships recently. Then he asked me about the regulars at the bar again, if I could list them for him. He pounced when I mentioned the Other.

“You didn’t list an Other before.”

“Well, he’s only started coming in recently, and he’s not exactly regular.” And that was when I realised what information he was determined to get out of me. Someone had mentioned that I was close to the Other, and Henrickson thought that he was involved.

“Does he have a name?” Henrickson asked, pen poised over his notepad.

“If he does, he hasn’t told me.”

“He doesn’t have a moniker he goes by in the community?”

“No, sir. But I only ever see him at The Roadhouse. If he’s been to any other businesses, they might know.”

“You know where else he’s been?”

“Nope.” He gave me a penetrating stare. “I work in a bar,” I said defensively. “It’s not like I know everyone’s movements, just if they want the pale ale or the amber. Most people aren’t that chatty, aside from pleasantries and placing their orders.”

“But you were chatting with him last night. You clocked off and spent two hours talking with him.”

I knew I was on dangerous ground, and since I didn’t know how to react I said the first thing that came to mind. “Strangely enough, his retail experiences didn’t come up in conversation.”

Hernickson gave me a cold look, and I sat up a little straighter in my chair. I resolved to play dumb and ignorant rather than a smart mouth, though that wasn’t as hard as it seemed. I really didn’t know anything about the Other – how old he was, where he lived, why he was in town, any other hangouts he may have, and friends or family.

“What exactly _did_ you talk about for two hours last night?”

“Music, mainly,” I replied. “The alphabet, food. My brother and Cassie Robinson were there. Mainly we just joked around and talked shit. Pardon, I mean, we caught up, acted like dorks. You know.”

Henrickson looked at me in such a way as to convey that he had no personal experience with acting like a dork. I didn’t doubt that for a moment. He ran me through the details of the Other again – what he looked like, how tall he was, when he first came in to the bar, how often he visited, what times and days he preferred, what clothes he wore. I could feel Henrickson taking particular interest in certain details – his height, the colour of his overcoat, the date I’d first seen him. I wondered what it all meant, and my curiosity pushed me right over into his thoughts.

Ava had been stabbed clean through the arm, and the wound was similar enough to those of the murdered people that Henrickson thought it was probably the same weapon. She’d seen the person who’d done it, a man with dark hair and nondescript clothes, and he’d stared down at her for a long moment before pulling the blade out and turning away. She’d seen him stop to pick up his coat, which was pale in the night but not white, and she’d run in the opposite direction.

Henrickson thought that his killer was my Other, that for whatever reason he was killing humans, and had baulked at killing a girl. I’d never seen the Other bat an eyelid at the fairer sex. He didn’t seem to notice the physical qualities of people at all, so that part of his hypothesis didn’t ring true to me.

Of course, my first thought should have been that he couldn’t possibly be a killer. But whereas I’d never truly believed that Chuck could harm a fly, I couldn’t find the same confidence within myself that the Other was so placid. There was a very detached nature to him, and I wondered if he would feel sadness at the death of a human, or if he would just take it in his stride, bemused at the ruckus that the cessation of life could cause.

After a few more repetitions of the same questions and mostly similar answers, I was free to go. Andy was long gone with my bike, and while there were clouds scuttling across the sky the spring weather was pleasant enough for a walk. I bought a soda from a vending machine in the foyer of the police station, and drank it slowly as I walked, enjoying the sugar entering my bloodstream, and then enjoying the coolness of the drink as my body warmed up.

My mind was empty. No, that’s not exactly right. I could feel thoughts shuffling around like clerks moving files here and there, but I had no clear stream of consciousness. Too much had happened in the past twelve hours, and I was happy to have a moment of respite. I walked to The Roadhouse along the uneven side of the road. There were trees full of blossom and birds pecking in the grass, but I only saw these things from a distance, like someone looking at a photo.

I entered The Roadhouse through the employee entrance, dropping my empty can into the large recycle bin by the back door. My bike was in the hall, and Andy was sitting in one of the chairs in Ellen’s office. Ellen was behind her desk, going through paperwork. I sat down in the chair beside Andy, and came back to myself a little. He seemed to shake himself, and blinked at me.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

“Alright,” I replied. He nodded, and we sank back down into silence, watching Ellen enter figures into a spreadsheet on her computer.

“You don’t need to put me up,” he said at last. “Ash said he’ll take me, if I can find his couch.”

I nodded, thinking that might turn out to be quite a task given the state of the rooms Ash rented in town. “Surprised he answered the phone,” I admitted. Ash likes to wake up at eleven and roll into work at eleven-thirty.

“E-mailed him,” Andy replied, and my mouth twitched at the corners.

Ellen entered in the last of her numbers with single-finger typing, saved her spreadsheet, and then turned to face us. Her warm face was serious, and the lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes pulled down. “Well,” she said at last. “You boys sure know how to have a fun night.” She wasn’t disapproving, not of us. She was annoyed that we were in trouble somehow, frustrated that we were in danger and she could do nothing.

“Hey,” I said, “I went home and went to bed. I was a good boy.”

“Me too,” Andy said. “Ava got attacked when she was walking home, and she called me after she got attacked.”

“You’re old enough that I can’t go asking you what Ava was doing walking home at four in the morning,” Ellen said, making Andy blush. “And you ain’t my kid so even if you were a pup I’d be out of line.” Her lips were pressed together, looking between the two of us. “But these are dangerous times, and for some unknown reason I like you two troublemakers. Keep your heads down, you hear?”

We nodded, and I could feel how touched Andy was to have someone care about him. He’d been on his own for a while, I knew, and the small motions of welcome he encountered meant a lot to him. He stood up suddenly, his arms spread wide. Though Ellen looked a little startled, she stood too and allowed him to lean across the desk and hug her. I picked up some confused, mixed messages from Andy. Happiness and sadness, relief and regret. I made a conscious effort to extricate myself from his mind, what little of it I could read.

“Try not to get called into the police station while I go count the stock,” Ellen said, heading out of the room. “Clock on in twenty.”

Andy and I sat in silence for a moment, and I felt relaxed in Andy’s presence despite the electric undercurrent running through us both. Without shifting a hair, Andy put voice to the question that had no doubt been tugging at his mind since before sunup.

“Who would try to kill Ava?” he asked.

I let my head fall back, and stared up at Ellen’s ceiling. I inhaled deeply, and the air in Ellen’s office smelled like paper, raw wood, and the earthy perfume she sometimes wore. “The same person who’s going to try to kill us.”

~*~

My Friday shift at The Roadhouse had been gruelling. Fridays are a good night for tips, so there was the pressure to be bright and efficient. The bar had been busier than usual as people always flood in during a crisis, keen for news and idle conjecture, so there was the added strain of moving around a room full of loud, buzzing minds. Theories and opinions seemingly beamed directly at me, some of them less than kind thoughts about Ava and her virtue, some of them angry suspicion at my friend Andy. Some people wondered if unstable Sam Winchester had snapped and attacked someone, after all, he always looked so uneasy and false, always stared at people with a glazed, dangerous look in his eyes, commenting on things no one had said. It was almost like he could…

I had to actively tear myself away, build up my walls and act extra-normal. Not that anyone _trying_ to act normal ever really succeeded. It was a horrible spiral that I got caught up in, and I had longingly thought of my Saturdays off throughout the night.

The other element adding to my wavering stability had been Andy. After my statement in Ellen’s office of the risk we both faced, I’d felt him shut down like Fort Knox.

“You’re different,” I’d said, still staring lazily up at the ceiling. “So am I. So is Ava. And I’m betting everyone else who’s been killed is too.”

Andy had been a tight coil, ready to snap, quivering mentally beside me. Then he’d sucked in a hard breath through his nose, and sighed it back out. “So what do we do?” he’d asked.

We worked hard, kept our eyes open, and I set Andy to thinking of anyone else who might be… like us. He scrutinised everyone who came in, and sometimes I got a feeling of pressure coming from him. Because I’d never met a person yet who walked around thinking about any special talents they might have in explicit detail, I had to take a different track. One connection I’d drawn between Andy and Ava was that it was hard for me to read them. They rarely had clear words, only when they were focussed. It was like they were in another room, and I could hear the odd murmur through thin walls. But I got feelings from them easily, a familiarity that I usually only had with people I’d known for a long time: Dean and Bobby, Dad when he’d been alive, and Ellen who was slowly getting easier to decipher.

So, rather than just listening in to a whole room of people – something that was hell for me at the best of times – I had spent the evening trying to listen in to everyone in order to try and find a quiet patch, to listen to the garbled thoughts of excited drinkers in order to find the contrasting seep of emotions. Ellen had pulled me aside after a few hours and made me sit in her office for a while, concerned by the false grin I’d had fixed on my face to try and hide the strain. She didn’t believe that I was so shaken by the attack on Ava, not entirely. But she let me compose myself, and her concern was as good as a red flag that I wasn’t exactly succeeding at looking normal.

I hadn’t found anyone who fit the bill, ending up with nothing for my efforts but a splitting headache. Andy had shaken his head at me as he clocked off, signalling that he hadn’t had any bright ideas himself. Bobby had come in for a late drink, and stuck around chatting with Ellen until I was done. I had wondered at the time if she’d called him, but I had been too mentally exhausted to find out. Bobby had driven us home without much conversation, waiting until I stumbled on the front step and he’d caught my arm to ask me if I were alright.

I had rarely lied to Bobby, far less than I had Dean or my own father, and I felt sad concern roll off him as I tried and failed at assuring him that I was fine. I didn’t let myself feel bad. Bobby had looked after me a lot in his life, gone far beyond any obligations he may have had. I wouldn’t drag Bobby into this until I was completely sure that I wasn’t just paranoid.

And that led to my plans for what should have been a glorious day off.

I got the fun stuff out of the way: cleaning. Bobby is kind of a pack rat, and normally I leave him be in his own house, but every few months I’ll go through and put all of the books back on the shelves, or stack the old newspapers neatly and put half of them out in Bobby’s work shed and the other half in the recycling. Today it was putting all of the CDs and DVDs back in their right cases, running a rag over the dusty surfaces in the well-used living room, and sorting Bobby’s various magazine subscriptions according to theme, then title, then date of issue.

Bobby has an incredibly complex storage system for his magazines – they sit in piles against one wall, spine out, until the pile topples over. Then Bobby will curse at the mess and vow to throw them all out. Sometimes I drove them into town and donated them to the craft corner at the after school centre, where the kids would cut up the car magazines and turn the pictures into Father’s Day cards or decorate treasure boxes with them.

I went further and neatened the hall, sorting through the junk mail on the small table by the door (surprise, it was all junk), putting Bobby’s shoes just inside the door to his room, and hanging the jackets that had been dropped on top of his shoes on the pegs by the door. For some reason, there was a pair of shoes hanging by their laces from one of the pegs, a scarf that Bobby had been given by our neighbour and never wore hung beside them. An unloaded rifle lay along the top of the pegs, and I returned it to its more conventional storage in the umbrella stand (which held no umbrellas, but often had loose change, old dog collars, and the odd bill that Bobby particularly wanted to ignore shoved down the bottom. I found Harper’s leash in amongst the scrunched paper and apple cores at the bottom of the umbrella stand, and hung it back in place on the coat rack.

My housekeeping embarrassed Bobby. He didn’t like being looked after, much less by a young man like me, who Bobby thought should be out being reckless and having fun before the joints started creaking. At the same time, he appreciated being able to find things, a joy that was strongly correlated to my little fits of tidying. When Karen had gotten ill, Bobby had hired a carer from the hospital to help with some of the things that Bobby struggled with. She had cleaned too, and driven Bobby half-mad with her conviction that her system was the best. He’d struggled to find the bills he needed to pay or the book he was half-way through for months, much to Karen’s amusement. Every now and then I’d hear Bobby think, _At least he’s not organising my sock drawer,_ so I know that he’s resigned himself to accepting my ways.

He stepped up to open head-shaking as the week went on and I started making cookies and amassing the components to various salads. There was no point trying to keep something secret from Bobby in his own house – he knew that Dean and I were planning something for his birthday, but whenever Dean did get it into his head to celebrate we never bothered filling Bobby in on the finer details, like who would be coming and what the dessert would be. Small surprises we could get away with.

The public areas of the house were as neat as I had the energy to get them by lunchtime. I dug out the sandwich toaster and made a canned spaghetti toasted sandwich, and wondered which of the next two items on my to-do list to attack first. I stood at the sink and ate my lunch without bothering to use a plate and stared out across the yard – the grass would need mowing soon. I’d probably turn a hose over the junkers that marked the edge of the start of the business side of the property and try to wash away some of the pollen that dusted their paint. Dean would tease me if he noticed, and Bobby would make no effort to hide his amusement, but a clean car is prettier to look at during lunch than a dirty one.

I rinsed the crumbs off my fingertips, and then wiped down the sandwich maker. I stared out the window for another long moment, and then sighed. Best to get the crummy job out of the way first. I called out to let Bobby know I was going, and fetched one of the leashes from the hall. I clipped it onto Harper’s collar, and let her loose from the chain that kept her in the yard. I can think about my own safety occasionally. Also, Harper tended to get a bit porky if she didn’t get more exercise than trotting around the salvage yard offered.

I knew the general area of town that Chuck lived in. Sioux Falls may be the biggest city in the state, but it’s a city made up of small towns and that mindset pretty much characterises the locals. Everyone knows the general location of anyone else’s abode and whose family your mother belonged to. Chuck lived off Main Street where it enters South Sioux Falls, towards the outskirts of town in an area of cheap houses that had been built in the late eighties when Citibank’s primary credit card centre relocated here. Those small stubby structures were now shared by those my age who had moved out of home, and bachelors like Chuck who were content to rent for the rest of their lives.

I headed to Ava’s house, which was on Redwood Avenue, and spoke to Hayley, one of her housemates. Hayley was a year older than Ava, putting her right between me and Dean in age. Ava was out of hospital, and staying with her parents for a few days. She promised to pass on my well-wishes and I asked if her parents were still well. She eventually directed me over to Balsa Court, which was exactly the fine example of architecture that the name implied, and I waved her farewell.

Chuck’s car was parked a little crookedly in his driveway, which at least served to cover some of the worse oil stains. I cringed a little at the bright yellow lemon. I was no whizz with cars, but I could see that the tyres needed air and could bet that it hadn’t been serviced in a long time. Chuck’s lawn was mostly weeds, and there was a small pile of newspapers damp with dew in the middle of the patch of green. His letterbox was in the shape of a log, but at some point someone had run duct tape all around it, and Chuck’s junk mail was sitting on his doorstep. I picked up the newspapers from Chuck’s lawn, grimacing at the cold dampness they held from the morning dew, and walked up to his front door. I rapped on it smartly, and then turned to secure Harper’s leash to the railing running along the front porch.

It took a long time, but eventually I heard shuffling, and Chuck’s door creaked open. He stared at me blearily, his bed hair (and bed beard?) tangled on one side and flat on the other, wearing a dressing gown and a t-shirt that had once been white. He wore faded pink slippers on his feet, and there were three rabbit ears and one eye between the pair. He looked like he’d just woken up, but given the waves of exhaustion rolling off him I thought it was more likely that he hadn’t been to sleep.

“You really should use the peephole,” I said. “These are dangerous times, for people like us.”

Chuck gave me a hurt look. He had impossibly sad eyes at times, and I got the full effect of them now. I sensed no irritation at this challenge I’d thrust upon him, not even any caution, just resignation. He stepped aside, and let me in.

Chuck’s house was surprisingly bright. Wide windows looked out to the back yard, and the pale yellow walls and wooden floors let the light bounce around. It was a complete mess, with clothes, towels, and novels littering the floor, and plates with food still on them piled on the couch, but Chuck’s housekeeping aside, it was a pleasant home. The living area and kitchen were open plan, and Chuck led me over to the dining table. He had an armchair pulled up to it at one end, and he sank into it, looking out the sliding glass door to the exciting view of a lawn chair tangled in an old hose on a thin strip of concrete just outside. He raised a foot and prodded a pile of possibly clean laundry, knocking it off the vinyl kitchen chair it was stacked upon, and I took that as an invitation to sit down.

“Is she okay?” he asked, his voice a little raw.

“Yeah,” I said. “Right through her bicep. It’ll take a while for the muscle to heal, but she’ll be fine.”

“Until it tries again,” Chuck said dully.

I opened my mouth to reply, and paused. He was right, of course. A killer wasn’t likely to give up just because they’d failed. Surely, they would be _less_ likely to give up.

“Do you know who it is?” I asked.

Chuck shook his head. “They don’t show up,” he said. “The Others.” There was a long pause as he looked out over his yard, not seeing it as he tried to collect himself. “I see things,” he said at last. “Things that are going to happen.” There was no fear behind his revelation, perhaps a little relief. “I hate it,” he admitted. “I didn’t even understand it until I was…” he trailed off, perhaps not wanting to delve into his life story. He gestured at the papers on the table, the only sign of order I’d seen in the house so far. There were sketches, and pages of text that looked like a script, little doodles in the margins. I looked closer at one of the larger drawings, and saw a look of fear on a masculine face, a sword thrust through a neck from behind.

“I think he was… the fourth. I think.” Chuck reached up with one hand and rubbed at his forehead. “It’s been happening for two years,” he said. “Before that, I just saw normal things. Kids with psychic powers. I thought I just had a good imagination.” He looked down at his sketch and frowned.

I’d flipped through some of Chuck’s books, though they were aimed at the under-ten market, because everyone in town had to see what our local talent was producing. The one I’d read had been about a girl who could make fires with her mind. From memory, she roasted marshmallows and then her friend got burned. The story had a nice message about being responsible that probably made up for the charming pyromaniac in the pages. I wondered if she was a real person. Then I wondered if she was still alive.

“The person doing this, it’s definitely an Other?”

Chuck shrugged one shoulder, seemingly bored as he reached across the table and started picking up cups, trying to find one with a drink still in it. He found one and his mood eased a little. I could smell the alcohol as he raised the mug and took a drink.

“They’re the only things that don’t show up in the visions,” he said. “So I’m assuming so. It was pure fluke that I figured that much out.” He swallowed the last of the old liquor. “You pick anything up from them?”

I knew that it was only fair for him to question me, and I had guessed that with his abilities he would know about my own. “No,” I said honestly. “It’s like a hum, like bees. It’s…”

“Peaceful,” he concluded. “They scare the shit out of me, but being near one…” He shook his head. “It’s like, if I wasn’t scared shitless and mostly drunk, I’d be pretty happy.”

I nodded. I was casting back over my experiences with the Other at The Roadhouse. Being near him was like stepping into a bubble of calm. “It’s kind of the same with people like us,” I said at last. “Not as much, but it’s there.”

Chuck nodded, and I could sense distaste and sadness tangling through him. I got the impression that he didn’t like his own disability, that he was saddened by the presence of people like us in the world. I didn’t think he had much to complain about – a few dreams that happened to be true, and a successful career to show for it. I opened my mouth to say as much, but he looked at me and I saw the deep bags under his eyes, the way he was holding himself up with his forearms braced on the table. Maybe it wasn’t just the occasional dream. Probably dreaming things that you knew were real made your nightmares that little bit more chilling. Probably there were times when you would do anything to keep from dreaming, when you’d try to stop sleeping altogether.

I had a sudden and inappropriate thought. I wished that Andy were with me, because Chuck clearly needed a hug. I smiled a little at the image, and while Chuck wasn’t privy to my thoughts my smile made him relax a little, and that easing of the tightness in him made me feel warm inside, and that warmth seemed to spread to Chuck, making some of the lines on his face soften. We were calming one another, and it was fascinating to observe it happen.

“What can we do?” I asked.

Chuck ran a hand over his face, trying to force some more order into his mind. “Maybe we can find some of the others like us,” he said. “Warn them. It’s just us four here but I think there are others nearby. I don’t often get locations. Faces, sometimes I see someone several times, scenes of their life.”

“Any details you have would be a big help,” I said, leaning towards him. “Names. Schools, maybe? And pictures. Do you have pictures of the people you see?”

Chuck twisted in his armchair and reached to a bookcase pressed against the wall. He pulled out a manila folder and passed it to me. It had a number of sketches in it, all very realistic, all very detailed. I felt a stab of pity for Chuck, having such clear images of violence, sitting down and taking the time to record those details.

“Do you have any that are a little less… stabby?”

Chuck’s mouth quirked at one corner. “Not recent ones. But I guess I can throw something together.” He reached over, and tapped a blunt fingernail to one of his sketches. “She’s next, I think. Ava, something was different there. I think there might be more than one Other running around.” That was bad news. “It’ll take me a few hours, but I can get you something more normal.”

“That’d be great,” I said, a possible course of action piecing itself together in my mind. He pulled over a sheet of paper, and scribbled a few notes on it, before pausing to yawn widely.

“I have to sleep,” he said glumly. I realised that this was a task for Chuck, something that he must do for the good of others, for the information he could get from his horrible dreams. He pressed his hand to his forehead. “I can feel them building up.”

I stood up to go, and hesitated once I was out of your chair. “Your visions… do they always come true?”

His face was grim. “No,” he said. “Sometimes it’s worse.”

“Great,” I sighed. “Just great.”


	5. Chapter 5

I walked home, taking my time to turn over what I’d learned from Chuck. The good news was that there were only four of us locals in danger. Less people to worry about; less people to expose our secrets to. Less families to sit at home and wonder what had happened to their children. But then, Chuck hailed from a town in Illinois. His dad had died when he was a teenager, and his mother had passed just after he had moved here. Andy didn’t speak of his family at all. My own parents were dead, and I was aware that both Bobby and Dean were experienced with grief. It was comforting to think they’d get over my death, in a morbid way. Ava was the only one of us four who would leave an aching wound in her family. But wounds do heal, and the period of mourning for her would pass eventually.

So what is there left of a person once they die? Memories of them held by the living, I guessed, but memories are not tangible things. They would die with their owners. In all honesty, Chuck was the only one of us to have done anything with his life, and his books were published under a pseudonym. All of us would be forgotten. Maybe that was the plan. Maybe things like us just weren’t meant to be, would be extinguished with minimal fuss so the world could get on with itself.

With that train of thought, it’s no surprise that I arrived home with a long face. Bobby took one look at me as he tried to rub grease off his hands with an old rag, and steered me into the kitchen. He pulled foil off a glass plate, and used the edge of a spoon to cut a slice of pastry that he then shoved in the microwave. After a moment’s thought, he hit cancel on the cook cycle, cut another slice for himself, and set them both on the rotating dish. He pulled a tub of ice cream out of the refrigerator, and placed it firmly in the middle of the table as if to say _‘Don’t mess with me boy, we WILL be having dessert early.’_

The moist smell of cooked apples filled the room, and I frowned at Bobby. “That pie’s meant to be for the weekend,” I said.

“Lucky me, getting to dig in early,” he replied dryly.

The microwave dinged, and Bobby took the bowls out, dropping them quickly onto the table and shaking his fingers to get the heat out. He opened the cutlery drawer, realised there were no forks where they should be, and pulled two out of the draining rack on the sink instead. He sank into his seat at the head of the table, right angles to me, and slid my fork across the scarred tabletop. He dug out a single, large scoop of vanilla ice cream and dropped it onto his slice of pie before shoving the plastic tub over to me. I took a more demure scoop, but Bobby shot me a look, and I added a second scoop. Bobby nodded as if I had done good, and because we were men we ate in silence for a long moment.

Bobby’s mind eases when he’s eating good food. His thoughts often seem scattered to me, but like every other disorganised sight in his house, there is method to his madness. He can switch from analysing an engine, to wondering what he could pull together for dinner, to lining up what bills he would have to pay soon and whether they had arrived, to what supplies he’d have to order in, and then back to the engine which he wouldn’t have stopped working on this whole time. The radio would be on, and I knew his mind could jump around like this because I had stood watching and talking to him a number of times. Bobby is not someone who is used to being still, and his mind is always in motion.

But when he eats, he relaxes. His thoughts slow, though they never cease, and his gaze turns inwards. Mealtimes were moments Bobby took to sort through memories, and there were times when I felt guilty for pulling him away from them.

“You gonna tell me what’s going on?” he asked at last.

I paused. Until this past week, I’d never explicitly told anyone about my ability. People have considered it, though always jokingly, trying to ease any discomfort they feel around me. As a kid, when I’d been struggling to adapt to school, I had tried explaining to my dad that the classrooms were too loud. He had always assumed that I struggled with other children, that I was delicate and he hadn’t known how to handle that. Dean had always pegged me as a weirdo, but he’d beat down on anyone who expressed the same sentiment within his earshot.

Bobby was watching me closely, and I stared down at my apple pie and the way the last of my ice cream soaked into the crust. He looked down at his own plate, bracketed by his ruddy forearms resting on the table. Eventually, he began to speak.

“Dean was always the troublemaker out of you two, but when you got into trouble, it was always deep, deep shit. Once, you must’ve been about six, because it was just after you-all moved here.” My ears pricked up. Most of my memories from before mom had died and just after were jumbled, mixed up with the memories I’d absorbed from Dean and Dad over the years. “You yelled at a teacher,” Bobby continued. “Went right off at her, got hauled off to the principal’s office and your dad got called in to come get you.” I could hear from Bobby’s mind that I’d been in tears when Dad had got there, though Bobby didn’t say that out loud.

“Dean had been in trouble earlier that morning, fighting or something. You know Dean. You said that your teacher had said something mean about him, called him names. Your teacher swore she hadn’t, had a whole classroom of kids who said that she’d been writing on the board and you’d just started screaming at her. But your dad knew you weren’t a liar, and he knew how to read people. This teacher was on the defensive, looked at the pair of you like you were trash. So he believed you. Scooped you up, took you home, and got you transferred to another class in the next week.”

I had no memory of this happening, and wondered if Dean would. I could remember him fighting a lot when we’d fist moved here, and that the two of us had to see the school counsellor for a few weeks. I guess I’d forgotten that I must have seemed pretty weird, that maybe adults would think that the weird things I said were part of a child’s grief. I pulled myself out of my thoughts as Bobby started speaking again.

“Your dad didn’t tell me this for another few years. Dean was chasing girls and causing trouble, and John was sure you were getting bullied though you never mentioned it.” Bobby glanced up at me then. “A bad habit of yours,” he said pointedly. “We’d had a few beers, and then a few whiskeys. He told me that story, and then he told me a story about your mother. She’d pulled him aside, told him to be a good father to you and Dean. She told him that you were special, that you would need him to be patient.” Bobby smiled to himself, and I heard my father’s voice admitting to Bobby all those years ago that he’d assumed she thought I was gay. Another detail Bobby thought he was keeping to himself in order to save me some embarrassment. The smile slowly fell away from his face.

“The next day was the fire,” he said, “and John always wondered that their last, serious conversation was her asking him to look after her children.” Bobby looked up at me then, his serious eyes looking at me unflinchingly. “He knew about you,” he said, his voice gruff but not uncaring. “He didn’t admit it, but he knew.”

And Bobby knew.

A flood of emotion washed over me. Relief, mainly, that someone I cared about knew me, knew what I was, what I could do. I could sense the protectiveness that was flowing from Bobby in strong waves, the intense fondness he felt for me. I swallowed my feelings down, tried to compose myself. I was protective of those I loved, too. I stared down at the dessert I wouldn’t be able to finish, weighing up my options. In the end I realised that even if I shared my concerns with Bobby, there was nothing he could do to help. I also knew that Bobby wouldn’t let me brush him off. Half-truths, then. My old friends.

“There’s a rumour,” I said, pushing my bowl away and laying my hands flat on the table. “One of the people killed. They were like me.”

Bobby’s shoulders stiffened, and his mind whip-snapped through several thoughts too quickly for me to follow. “Why?” he asked, and I could only shrug. I honestly didn’t know.

“Maybe finding out that there are people like me, if there are others, was just too much. Too unnatural.”

Bobby’s face went dark. “There is nothing _unnatural_ about you, boy. There is nothing in you that ain’t just the way it should be.”

I can put it down to the stress of the past day, but my face flushed and I had to blink several times. I forced myself to nod, and took a deep breath, consciously pulling myself away from Bobby in an effort to compose myself. “I’m just,” I paused to swallow thickly. “I’m just _scared_ ,” I said, and my voice cracked on that last word. I focussed on keeping my walls up, because if I felt whatever it was that Bobby was processing, well. Bobby reached over, and his hand paused, hovering in the air, before he patted my own hand where it was clenched on the table.

Coming from Bobby, who was of the same school as my father, that men could have feelings but shouldn’t express them, it meant a lot. I took another long breath, reaching up to wipe my nose on with the back of my long sleeved shirt. Dean would approve of that motion, at least.

“So,” he said at last, sounding extra gruff to compensate for the past moment. “About these killings.”

“I need to talk to Dean,” I said, standing up and grabbing my bowl. I made to take Bobby’s, but he curled a hand around it protectively. “He knows what’s what, and if anyone’s new in town, or anything suspicious…”

Bobby nodded. “That brother of yours sure has his ear to the ground.” He gave me a long look. “You hear anything, you go straight to the Sheriff. It’s his job to put his neck on the line, not yours. Your spidey-senses or whatever go off, you get the hell out of there and get safe. You understand?” He had a stern edge to his voice, as if he’d ground me if I got myself killed. I nodded seriously, and scraped my bowl out into the scraps bucket. I rinsed it in the sink, and put it to one side to be washed later.

I grabbed the shopping list off the fridge, and the car keys from the clutter at one end on the bench. I lifted my hand to my face in a salute and held it there until Bobby returned it, a mimicry of an exchange my brother had often performed with my father. Then I stepped out into the sunlight of the early afternoon.

~*~

The car was half-filled with chips and beer when I found Dean. He’d mentioned that he was getting some cash in hand work helping one of his road crew buddies extend his driveway. Usually guys would head over to one another’s houses and help out in exchange for beer and barbecue, but Jason had gone through two slabs already trying to get his friends to connect his carport to the road, and had decided that money might be a more effective carrot. Dean waved to me as I pulled up, feeling happy as he always did when he was surrounded by friends, feeling content in his own skin in a way that only manual labour or sex brought out.

Of the two, I _much_ preferred stumbling across Dean doing manual labour. One of the big benefits of moving in with Bobby was that Dean’s sex life stopped being my business. Another benefit was that Bobby didn’t keep his sneakers in the icebox during summer. I climbed out of my car, stretched my arms up over my head, and then grabbed a six pack off the back seat.

“Fancy seeing you here,” I said, trying to copy the lazy tease Dean’s voice was always laced with when he dropped in on me at The Roadhouse. “Better be careful, if you go around with a shovel in daylight, someone might try to hire you for that shit or something.”

Dean smirked at me and reached out a hand for a beer. “Nah,” he said. “You can’t dig a hole with your shirt on, and I can’t take my shirt off without distracting the ladies. It would simply cause too much disruption on a regular work day.”

I rolled my eyes, and offered a beer each to Jason, and his brother-in-law Charlie. Jason palled around with Dean a lot when he was single, though he kept his distance whenever he had a girlfriend, as sometimes they paid Dean a little too much courtesy. Charlie was a few years older, married to Jason’s sister with a kid who was about five. When the baby had been born, he’d been down the supermarket all hours of the day, looking for the right kind of formula, the right kind of nappies. I knew less about that stuff than he did, but I could read labels like a calm person and that seemed to be a help. Charlie smiled and offered me a ‘thanks’ for the beer, remembering me. Jason was a little more reserved, and I could feel that he was cautious of me. He gave me a small nod, and I smiled easily in return.

“You seeing Cassie again soon?” I asked Dean.

He rolled her eyes. “If you like her so much, then why don’t you marry her?” he said childishly.

I gave Dean a long, level look. “I can’t believe people are dumb enough to think you’re a catch,” I said at last, and Dean gave me a roguish grin. “I heard a rumour at work about the murders and stuff, and I figured she might know.”

Jason snorted. “She’s coming to Dean for information on that score,” he said. “The man’s like a bloodhound on the scent.”

“Sure looks like one in the mornings,” I said agreeably, and Dean shoved me in the arm. I wouldn’t be able to get away with teasing him like this if Cassie were around, or if we were at The Roadhouse. But Jason was a good friend in Dean’s eyes, and my brother wanted me to get along with his friends. Part of his master plan for getting me a life.

“So what’d you hear?” he asked. “If it was the one about the sex games, I can’t tell you it’s not true.”

“You just can’t believe anyone’d have sex and not invite you along,” Jason said.

“I have,” Charlie said. “There’s at least one person.”

“Doesn’t count if your wifey asked nicely,” Dean said with a leer. “I just turned her down because I didn’t want to ruin her for other men.” Jason gave Dean a hard shot in the arm, and Charlie whacked Dean in the ankle with his shovel. Dean laughed easily, and assured his friends that the lady in question was indeed a saint.

“I heard that the guy who got done on the edge of our county, the black one,” I paused to make sure their full attention was on me. “I heard he was magnetic.” They all looked at me for one, long moment, trying to figure out if I were joking or just gullible. “He was a regular at the bar in Canton, doing knife tricks and stuff like that.”

“Bull,” Dean said at last.

I shrugged. “Maybe. But it sure beats your theory on them all being from out of town.”

“They have been!” Dean insisted. “Even Ava, her family moved here a few years before us.”

“It’s still a dumb theory,” I said.

Charlie nodded his agreement. “Magnetic guy is way cooler.”

Dean snorted. “What about the rest of them then?”

I leaned back against the hood of my car, crossing my legs at the ankles. “Andy swears he saw a video of a girl who made fire in her hand, and that it was the same girl who was found in Monroe three months ago with the same hole in her neck. And that older guy, the one over in Rock Valley? Apparently he talked to animals.”

They all stared at me for another long minute. “This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard,” Jason said at last.

I shrugged. “You should try working in a bar sometime,” I replied flatly.

Dean looked at me with easy amusement. “So what, someone is going out there killing the freaking X-Men?”

I caught his eye, careful to hold the smile in place on my face. “Could be,” I said at last. I felt Dean stiffen, putting two and two together. He leaned a little more heavily at the shovel stuck in the ground by his feet. “You’d better be careful,” I said, angling my features into a sly grin. “If word gets out about your powers of shirtlessness, you could be next.”

Jason snorted. “More like his powers of bullshit.”

“It’s called _charm_ ,” Dean said, trying to sound demure. “You’re just confused because you don’t have any.”

“Maybe they’ll come after Sam,” Jason shot back, causing Dean to freeze. “On account of his freaky giraffe legs.”

“Maybe they’ll come after you,” I volleyed back easily, “bag themselves their own dog-faced boy.” Jason was actually quite handsome, and did not appreciate any insult to what was, realistically, his greatest asset.

“Maybe they’ll come after Charlie,” Dean said, cutting Jason off before he could get personal. “If he can convince a pretty little girl like Monica to put up with him, he must have magic powers.”

Charlie grinned, and tried to look like a sly dog. It didn’t work especially well, but it lightened the mood a heap.

“Okay,” Dean said at last. “It’s a pretty entertaining conspiracy theory, I’ll give you that. But there’s no way it’s true.” Dean was telling himself that if I’d brought up such things in public, I must be normal. He went through cycles of being angry at me, scared of me, and in denial. I can’t say that I can pick a favourite of the three, but his smiles are a little less forced when he’s hanging out by the river in Egypt.

I shrugged easily. “Maybe if Cassie get’s stuck writing the classifieds again, she can do a little digging.”

“The only place an article like that’d get printed is the Weekly World News,” Jason said.

Dean looked thoughtful. “I hear they pay their crackpots pretty good though,” he said.

“You should write it up,” I said, nudging him with a toe. “They might pay you in free issues.”

Dean ginned. “I _have_ been meaning to start indulging my taste in fine literature.” He pronounced ‘literature’ as four distinct syllables, like each one was its own word.

I drained my beer, and pushed up off the hood of the car. “I’d better get this all home, before this turns into the third driveway party of the month.”

“You’re a bad influence on us, Sammy,” Dean said seriously. “You get out of here with your booze and your nights of indiscriminate loving.”

I snorted, but couldn’t hold back a laugh. “You-all heading to The Roadhouse tonight?” I asked.

Dean raised his eyebrows at me. “I don’t know whether to be surprised that you’re actually doing something social, or disappointed that your idea of being social is going in to your own job out of hours.”

I shrugged. “I can’t help it if it’s where all the cool kids hang out.”

“Whatever,” Dean said, before swallowing the last of his beer and tossing the bottle into one of Jason’s bushes. “I’ll catch you there.”

I climbed back into my car, pulled the door shut, and drove away. Being the ‘wild child’ that I was, I was heading home to have a nap before taking a stab (if you’ll pardon the pun) at phase three of my fact-finding plan.

~*~

My nap had turned out to be a small coma. I woke up to Bobby frying schnitzel in a pan with some potatoes. Much to his distaste, I got downstairs in time to steam some vegetables. Bobby had worked as a cook for a few years after the war, travelling around and avoiding responsibility before returning home and marrying his childhood sweetheart, who hadn’t been waiting for him – she’d just had more important things to do during the years than get hitched. As a result, his own culinary repertoire leaned heavily towards pub fare. While my dad had been good with chopsticks until the day he died, Bobby had sworn off all foreign food except pizza and pavlova, and committed himself to a life of meat and two veg (so long as both of the vegetables were potato).

“Find anything from Dean?” he asked as I padded around him, barefoot and still sleep-rumpled.

I shook my head no. “He’ll have something tonight,” I said. “I’m gonna meet him at The Roadhouse, see if we can’t wrangle some more information out of the masses.”

Bobby looked at me from the corner of his eye as he expertly slid his spatula under a schnitzel and transferred it to his plate. “He know the whole deal?”

I picked up the schnitzel with a pair of tongs, laid some paper towel on the plate, and returned the meat so some of the oil could soak out of it. “I don’t think I have the time to explain,” I said honestly. It was one conversation I definitely didn’t feel the need to have with Dean. Bobby frowned at his slices of potato as he transferred them to the paper towel, but nodded idly. I picked up from his head a vague feeling of intent, and a kind of clicking between times and locations that signified Bobby planning something. I guessed he was probably going to pull Dean aside and try to drill some sense of severity into him. I didn’t expect him to be particularly successful. I love my brother, and I know that there’s nothing more important to him than family, but he has his own life and his own concerns now. He doesn’t have room for the things that don’t fit into his worldview.

“Mind if I tag along to the bar?” he asked. “The other day Rufus was bragging about how easy it is to thump those kids at pool.”

Of course, Bobby wasn’t asking. Of course, he had plans to make sure that my brother and my boss knew to keep an eye on me. Of course, it wasn’t a stupid idea to have someone covering my back if phase three didn’t go according to the incredibly sketchy plan.

“Sure,” I said, draining the vegetables and serving them up onto our plates. Bobby grabbed his own before I could get too carried away with the green beans and carrots, and left me to bus my own table. We ate in silence, each lost in our own thoughts – me trying to order my brain through the fog of sleep, and Bobby remembering back when he was my age. He was rummaging around in his box of war memories, and though I learned from Dad to keep my distance during those private times, somehow Bobby’s time in Vietnam was closed off, something that he didn’t project. I felt an intense gratitude that Bobby kept these harsher memories from me. When you can read minds, those individuals who can keep their own thoughts on a leash become especially dear to you.

He needn’t have been so worried. He wasn’t the one being hunted.

~*~

My idea of a good time is stretching out on my bed with a book. The growth spurts of my teenage years meant that most couches struggled to accommodate my long limbs. It was an idle dream of mine to buy a new couch for the den, but the worn furniture in Bobby’s house held a lot of sentimental value, for both him and me, and I had no desire to implement any drastic changes.

Every now and then I thought about moving out. If I got a second job, I could afford to rent a place in town. But the truth is that Bobby’s company probably stopped me from getting too indrawn, and I wasn’t confident that I could move into a little share house with some friends without conflict arising from my little gift. Also, I didn’t exactly have a wealth of friends to move in with. Jess hadn’t moved back to town after finishing her nursing degree, and while she often told me to come and visit her in Chicago, I was leery of cities and the sheer volume of minds they held. Sioux Falls proper was too much for me.

Hell, there were evenings when the small crowds at The Roadhouse got too much for me, and that night was shaping up to be just that kind of beast.

Ava was out of the hospital, which I was pleased to see, though her arm was in a sling and her smile was often tight. She was in pain, and she couldn’t drink because she was on medication. Her father and sister sat with her at a table, and Andy dropped by her frequently, giving her virgin mojitos. She smiled at him gratefully every time. I peeled away from Bobby and went over to her, crouching down by her chair to give her a hug. Happiness rolled off her, and I accepted her invitation to sit with them.

“It’s good to see you’re on your feet so soon,” I said.

“I’m on my butt,” she replied, wriggling on the wooden chair. “But that’s half-way there. We just came in for dinner, since Dad still can’t cook-” I looked over at her father, who gave me a self-deprecating smile in response, “-and it seems like the whole town has come out to see me. Thank you for the card, by the way,” she added as Andy came over to take my order

“Thanks for not dying,” I replied, and while her family stiffened, Ava laughed the moment off.

“You’re just happy you’ve still got someone to thrust books at you,” she said, aiming for a sly smile.

“I like a woman who knows the catalogue,” I said seriously, and Andy bopped me on the head with his notebook. I could tell that Ava’s father didn’t approve of Andy, that he thought she could do much better than some barhop. Her sister thought Andy was cute, and that Ava should have some fun at last. Both had threads of relief that boys were interested in her, that Ava was keen to be out and talking to people. I hadn’t realised before that she’d had such a lonely time in high school.

“Can I get you anything?” Andy asked me. “Or did you just decide to come in and bag some tips?” His tone was light and teasing, but I could feel real curiosity in him. I wondered if he’d had a moment alone with Ava yet, if he’d filled her in.

“I’m meeting up with Dean,” I replied. After a moment, I added, “I got some more conspiracy stuff for you.”

Andy knew what I meant immediately, though it took him a moment to compose himself enough to paste an easy smile on his face. “Awesome,” he said. “You’ll have to give me the goss sometime tonight.”

“What’s all this?” Ava asked, leaning the elbow of her good arm on the table top.

“Secret men’s business,” Andy said, waving it off.

I spotted Dean come through the door, and put my hand on the back of the wooden chair, preparing to get up. “Hey, I gotta go talk to Dean. Would I be able to drop in and see you tomorrow?”

Ava nodded. “I’d like that. You can help me move back out to the house.” Her father opened his mouth to protest; he didn’t want his little girl out of his sight.

“Sure,” I said, standing up. “I finish around five.”

“It’s a date,” Ava said, though she was smiling at Andy with a mischievous light in her eyes. Andy slapped my shoulder with his notepad, and stuck his tongue out at her. I threw an arm around his neck and messed up his hair like Dean has done to me a thousand times, and then I bent down and gave Ava a kiss on the top of her head. It was more affection than I would give to someone who was just an acquaintance, but more and more connections were springing up between Ava and I as time went on.

“Stay safe,” I murmured into her shiny, brown hair, and she nodded.

Dean had scrubbed up since I’d seen him earlier, but he was hardly polished. His jeans had spots of paint on them from when he’d touched up the house last year, and the leather jacket he’d inherited from Dad’s wardrobe was soft and worn. With Dean, you got what you saw – he had few pretentions and little class, and those ragged edges gave him charm. Women in the bar, and the odd man, registered him on their radars. If he had strutted up to the bar, he would have had company in a heartbeat. As it was, he’d seated himself in a booth near the pool table, and that signalled he was expecting company of his own.

I slid in across from him, and he gave me an odd look. He hadn’t expected me to actually be out socially, then he’d seen me laughing with Andy and Ava. He was wondering if he should be pleased or not. As much as Dean denied my own abilities, he could sense the otherness in my friends, and he was wary of it.

“Driveway get done?” I asked.

“Mostly,” he replied. “We got the first slab of concrete down, finish it up tomorrow.” I nodded, honestly not caring about Jason’s driveway. “You’re welcome to come play snack wagon again.”

“I’m working,” I replied. “And I might have plans after.”

Dean raised an eyebrow at me. “You joined a book club or something?”

“Conspiracy society,” I replied. He rolled his eyes at me, but I stared levelly at him, and eventually his discomfort started to prickle my own senses.

“Why are you so sure about this freak theory of yours?” he asked. I could feel his regret at questioning me – he didn’t know what my reply would be.

“Get Cassie to look over these details,” I said, pushing a folded sheet of paper across the table, the one Chuck had written for me that morning. “The dates won’t be perfectly accurate, but the locations are.”

Dean unfolded the paper and stared down at it. “This isn’t your handwriting,” he commented.

“Our secretary,” I explained.

“Right.” I could read right out of Dean’s mind that he wanted to throw that piece of paper away. Destroy it and never mention it to anyone, so I could just be his crazy kid brother, so there would be no chance of me being right about this. I reached over the table and grabbed the sleeve of his jacket.

“I’m _not_ crazy,” I said. I felt a flare within him, irritation that I had been so apt in reading him.

“If you’re so not-crazy, why aren’t you taking this to the Sheriff? Or better yet, the police?”

“Because he’ll ask where I got those sketchy details of dead people, and I won’t have a good answer. Then he’s going to lock me up until I give him real answers, except the honest truth is something that he won’t believe.” I pulled back, and let my earnest face fall into a disappointed look. “Not even you believe it,” I said, and my voice sounded accusing to my own ears.

Dean stared at me for a long moment. “I never know what you’re talking about,” he said. I opened my mouth to shoot something, anything, back at him, but I paused. He was looking at me with his green eyes, and there was a sadness in them. He didn’t understand the distance between us. He didn’t understand why everything with me was so difficult.

“You don’t accept things,” I said softly. “You don’t accept _me_.”

He gave me a long, appraising look. “Is this about you liking dudes?” he finally asked. I rolled my eyes, and got up from the booth. “Because, I swear,” he continued, “I’m really not surprised by that. A little disappointed maybe.” I walked away from him, and tried to ignore the glee he felt as he called after me, “Do you want me to march in a freaking parade?”

The bar seemed like a hostile place now. People had noticed the exchange between me and Dean, and their curiosity rubbed me the wrong way, made me too irritable to concentrate. I scowled at Bobby as he turned on his barstool to watch me approach. “He’s all yours,” I said bitterly. “I need to go clear my head.” I pushed through the door that blocked off the small hallway that serviced the employee-only sections of the bar, and hastened to put a second barrier between me and the crowd of stubborn jackasses that seemed to fill my life. I opened the door leading to the employee car park, and stepped gratefully out in to the cool, fresh evening.

I was surprised by the sight of two Others in the staff parking lot. I wondered if the place held some significance; The Roadhouse seemed to attract them, inside and out. There was the Other I was familiar with, his tan overcoat hiding the line of his shoulders, his shoes as dusty as every other pair of leather shoes in town. His hair was mussed, his skin glowed, and his eyes were just as mesmerising as ever, even over the distance.

His partner was well-groomed, wearing a sharp suit that emphasised his lines rather than masking them. He was swarthy, with an olive complexion that had a bronze glow to it, and brown eyes that were so deep and dark they looked black. I wondered if all Others were handsome, if it was some feature of their species. Neither Other looked happy to be standing side-by-side, staring at the wooden wall of the extension that protruded back into the parking lot, converting the building from a thick line to an L shape.

“You have stalled,” the unfamiliar face said.

My Other looked up at the security light that shone out over the gravelled area impassively. “It is an interesting scenario,” he said at last.

“Interest is unnecessary,” his companion countered. “It is the task of our garrison.” My Other stayed silent, as if the gutter along the extension and the light bolted in place demanded his full attention. “You must complete,” his companion continued. “You should do so now.”

My Other tore his eyes away from the wall, and regarded his companion without emotion. “I will be unable to trace one in the final hours of the day. And nothing is to be started on the seventh day,” he replied.

His companion huffed, an oddly human gesture in a conversation that had been so flat and emotionless. “The day after, then.” The companion turned then, and walked towards the scrubby forest at the back of the roadhouse. It seemed like he disappeared into the trees.

I stayed still for a long moment, studying the Other who had become familiar to me while remaining incomprehensible. Eventually he turned his head to one side and looked at me. I felt my face flush, embarrassed at being caught eavesdropping, but there was no reprimand in his expression. It was an empty look – his jaw slack and his lips pressed closed only because there was no need for them to be parted. His eyebrows were neutral and he looked for all the world like he was made of clay and his creator had yet to conceive of the perfect expression to press his features into. His eyes though, they were deep and dark and somehow sad all on their own.

I swallowed, and when he returned his gaze to the light above I turned away from him, needing a moment to compose myself. I felt like I had witnessed something significant, some order or supplication to perform an impossible task. I felt sorry for the Other even as I recognised that his trials – his whole world – were none of my concern. Without consciously intending to, I stepped out into the employee parking lot, and found myself walking over, standing by his side.

I looked over at him, and saw the components of his face rearranging themselves one at a time – his blue eyes rotating to look at me, then his head turning so that it was on an angle, the side of his face still pointing upwards and light washing down over the angle of his cheekbone. His lips were parted, and he was staring at me with that intent look, like he was staring right into my soul. But I made myself focus, take in the rest of his face. His eyebrows were raised in the middle, pressing a furrow up his forehead. His hair was as messy as ever, making him look like a stray animal. His mouth – those dry, luscious lips – was turned down at the corners. I still wasn’t good at reading those muted expressions of his, but he looked a little lost. We held one another’s gaze for a long moment, and then he slowly turned away, looking again at the devout insects above us.

“Why are creatures attracted to something dangerous?” he asked.

I followed his gaze, watching as the light caught on the translucent wings of the flying bugs. “I think the danger is irrelevant,” I replied at last. “It’s the beauty that attracts them.”

I had no idea how much time passed. While I was aware that I was supposed to be suspicious of him, that I _should_ be demanding answers, the reality was that I was basking in his presence like a cat who had found a particularly favourable sunbeam. His Otherness washed over me and it felt familiar, it felt good. There was no noise when I was inside his personal bubble, there were no minds on my radar, no thoughts and feelings masquerading as my own. It was just the two of us, me and this awkwardly beautiful man, our eyes not meeting but each so aware of the other.

“What do you see,” he asked at length, “when you look at me?”

I turned back to him then, and allowed my gaze to roam across his profile. The flatness of his nostrils, the angle of his eyes, the way the stubble that tinted the bottom half of his face caught the light, adding to that soft glow around him. And then he turned to me, meeting my gaze without hesitation, though his face was a little uneasy. The glow around him flared, got brighter and brighter, forming a ring around his head that was so powerful it bleached the colours from his eyes, desaturated his skin to a cold silver.

I reached out to him, unthinkingly craving a clearer impression. A hand rested on his cheek, my palm cupping his jaw and tilting his face up to me. My fingers tingled as they moved through the brightness, a halo that stripped all shadows from his face. And then, that wasn’t enough. I reached out my other hand and touched his neck, sliding my fingers down under his collar, stroking the smooth, dry skin of the join between neck and shoulder.

Things be came clearer then, my eyes adjusted to the light cast out from him and I could see shapes behind him, large and dark, as if the light that fell upon them was consumed. My fingers tightened on his neck, the shapes flexed, and all of the air was sucked out of my lungs. “Oh,” I said dreamily.

He started, his glow snapping back into his skin and leaving him looking painfully plain and disturbed. The security light above us flickered violently, casting us into shadow for a long moment, and I felt him tear himself away from my hands. When the light finally recovered I was standing alone in the parking lot.

Just me and the bugs.

~*~

I walked back into the bar in a daze, lost in my own little dream world. My head was stuffed full of cotton, everything around me dulled and made beautiful by its distance. Then I pushed open the door that closed the hallway off from the main body of the bar, and a wave of angry, painful sound hit me. It were as if crossing that threshold tore the skin away from my body and then thrust me out into a sandstorm, thoughts hit me with such violence.

I raised my hands to my temples, and my legs must have given way from under me because suddenly I was on the floor, my knees stinging from the impact. I was in danger of toppling forwards right onto my face, but a pair of hands gripped one of my biceps, and did the best they could to keep me upright. There was noise everywhere, and I couldn’t separate what was real and what wasn’t. Voices snarling and tangling together, mean and vicious, calling me a freak, talking trash about my family, angry at me for scaring people, _Dean_ being angry at me.

No, I realised as a second pair of hands came to help haul me to my feet. Dean wasn’t angry, not deep down. He was scared, and he didn’t like being scared, so he painted a red fury over those feelings to try and burn them off. The other pair of hands on me belonged to Andy, and his thoughts were cool waves, willing me to get to my feet, willing me to tell him what was wrong.

“Loud,” I said through gritted teeth. I was met by a wall of confusion, made harder by the people who were crowding closer even as Jo yelled at them to get back and give me some air.

“I thought you were over these damn dizzy spells,” Dean said harshly. He was yelling, why was he yelling at me? There was a sharp buzzing sound in the air, and it was only when Andy was brushing my bangs out of my face, whispering “shh,” that I realised the noise was coming from me. A long, low keen, cracked down the middle. A sound I hadn’t made since I’d been a little boy, and my mother had died, and I’d been drowning in grief.

I felt the blue-green clicks of Bobby’s mind, opened my eyes just enough to see him pulling people out of my way. “Get him outside,” he was saying to Dean. “He needs air and quiet.”

Dean slung one of my arms around his strong shoulders and began pulling me from the bar. Andy tried a similar motion, but he was so small and slight by my side that I almost engulfed him. He put his hand on my lower back though, and gripped my forearm tightly. I could feel his presence in my head, willing my body to move. I was towed to the front entrance and out into the patron parking lot, but the snarled thoughts of the bar patrons had caught on me, and as always my stupid brain opened itself up to every mind out there, trying so hard to find the danger that I was drowning in the thoughts of everyone around me. Dean leaned me against the hood of the Impala, and I sagged against it, my head in my hands.

“What’s wrong with him?” Dean asked, taking a step back.

Andy crouched down in front of me, put his hands on my knees. Dean didn’t like that, didn’t like someone being closer to his own brother than him. He wondered if we were gay, and I had to laugh at that.

“Don’t judge,” I told him. “Don’t judge when you don’t know a damn thing.”

Andy squeezed my knees, wondering what to say, if Dean and Bobby knew about my secret.

“They know,” I told him. “Wouldn’t fucking believe it if his life depended on it. Would rather believe I’m nuts, how fucked up is that?” I didn’t intend to, but suddenly I was on my back on the hood of the car, my arms flung out wide. “We’re all going to fucking die and he’ll never admit there’s a reason. I hope it keeps you up at night. Bobby will have to avenge my death.” I had to blink several times, as tears were welling up in my eyes. “I don’t want to die,” I said in a small voice.

Andy was rubbing circles at the insides of my knees with his thumbs. I was so hypersensitive, I could feel Dean’s hand run through his hair as if it were my own fingers, my own scalp. “Is he having another breakdown, or?”

I was on my feet so quickly I almost toppled over, the momentum turning what would have been a weak shove at Dean into a blow that sent him staggering backwards. He regained his footing, and it was only my hands being fisted in his shirt that kept me upright. He shoved me away from him, and as I struggled to get my feet under me he pulled back a hand, ready to punch me.

The punch never fell. Bobby had caught me from behind, his worn hands on my back and his exasperation seeping through. Andy had a hand on Dean’s arm, and I could hear Andy willing Dean to be still, little rings of it sounding out from his skull like a radar of control. Dean and I stood there for a long moment, staring at one another.

“Why have you never believed me?” I asked, and my voice came out hoarse and tired. I was so tired.

“Calm down, you idjits,” Bobby said, giving me a little push forwards, balancing me on my own feet. “You were raised better than to duke it out in a parking lot.”

After a moment, Andy eased his hands away from Dean, and my brother sagged. He was confused about what had just happened, ashamed at his actions, and wishing deeply that the events of the evening were someone else’s problem.

“I gotta get back to work,” Andy said, his eyes on me. “You need me to drop by later?”

I was already feeling the lack of his presence, but I was calmer and could shut out the minds of the people who were watching our altercation from the long windows in the bar. I shook my head, and felt the world spin for a moment in retribution.

“Tomorrow,” I said. “All four, tomorrow.” Andy nodded, took two steps backwards to put some distance between him and Dean, and then turned and headed back into the bar.

Bobby patted me on the shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “We got a conversation that’s long past due ahead of us.”

I nodded in agreement, and tried not to compromise the seriousness of the situation by throwing up.


	6. Chapter 6

Dean had bought a sectional couch since the last time I’d been to the old family home. I remembered him telling me only after I was laid out on it, Dean lifting my feet and shoving a TV Guide under my shoes. After a moment of thought, he shifted two of the sections and I was able to lay my legs flat. Finally, a couch I could stretch out on.

I slung my forearm over my eyes but somehow that only made things worse. Without any visual input to process, my brain went into overdrive when it came to collecting any other kind of information. I could feel Bobby’s mind shift place in the room as he stood behind an armchair, leaning his palms on the soft, beat up cushion. I could feel Dean’s hesitation before he sat down on a loose section of the couch, his feet spread wide, his body angled forwards. Both of their minds were humming. Dean was looking for a way to explain what had happened tonight in such a way as to be able to deny everything, while Bobby was studying Dean’s face, wondering what it would take to convince him. Eventually he asked, “You got a pack of cards?”

I called out card after card, picking the image from Bobby’s brain. He was taking pains to visualise it clearly and I was so, so grateful to him. I felt it when he handed the pack of cards to Dean, heard the shift of cardboard as my brother shuffled the deck and then selected one. There was a long, long pause.

“You have to actually look at the card, Dean,” I said. “I’m not a magic eight ball. Three of diamonds.”

“You two should take this to Vegas,” Dean said dryly.

“Think of something you’ve never told anyone,” Bobby instructed, but he had a wry twist to his voice, turning it into a dare. “Something no one would know.” I felt the planes of Dean’s consciousness shift, and despite the pounding in my head, I couldn’t help smiling.

“You kind of liked it when Rhonda got you to try on her-”

“Woah, okay,” Dean said cutting me off. “I’m convinced.”

“You’re worried because you have a lump on your-”

“Sam!”

“-but you won’t go and see your doctor. You want to ask Cassie to do some stuff in the bedroom but you’re worried she’ll dump you because she’s classy and stuff.”

“ _Sam,_ ” Dean hissed, close to mortified.

“He can keep going all night,” Bobby said lazily, “until you get it through your big, thick head.”

“Fine,” Dean said, slumping back into his seat. “My brother’s a freak, what else is new?”

Bobby reached over and smacked Dean in the back of the head, and I chuckled weakly. Dean scowled at him, but couldn’t hold the expression for long. His demeanour turned sulky for a moment, and then straightened out.

“You’re serious about all of this, aren’t you?” He addressed the question to me, but both Bobby and I answered in the affirmative at the same time. “Great,” Dean said, a heavy sigh as he ran his hand through his hair. “Just great. And those people getting killed? They’re also..?”

“Yup.”

“Freaking great.” The room was quiet, both audibly and mentally. Bobby was waiting for Dean to respond, and Dean’s mind was absent of coherent thought for a moment. I can’t say I felt a lot of sympathy for him. If he thought accepting my condition was hard, he should try living with it.

“So,” he said at last. “What do we do about it?”

“This may sound like a crazy idea,” Bobby said slowly, his voice twisting with sarcasm, “but I was thinking we could try not letting Sam get his ass killed. You know, just to start out with.” I could feel the mental tick that accompanied Dean rolling his eyes, and couldn’t stop my own grin.

“Sam’s got his own investigation goin’,” Bobby continued. “But he asks for help, you give it. He gets in trouble, you get him out.”

Dean nodded. “Okay, sounds simple enough. Everyone’s been killed when they’ve been on their own, right? Sammy, you’re gonna need an escort for a while.” I could feel approval coming from Bobby, though I was less than thrilled about the idea. “You got any ideas who this killer is anyway?”

My mind was pulling away from Dean and Bobby, perhaps sensing that there was no immediate threat. I was down to sensing waves of emotion from them, and the shifts of such during the conversation had left me feeling dizzy. “The Detective thinks it’s an Other,” I said before pausing to run my tongue around inside my mouth.

“Well, great,” Dean said sarcastically. “Something nice and simple then.”

“Chuck thinks it might be two Others, maybe more.”

I could feel them both weighing up this bit of information. Others were known to be stronger than humans by a noticeable amount. They had long lives, partially due to their skill in not dying. Though it had been played down a lot in the various exercises in public relations, they were physically quite formidable.

Eventually Dean asked, “What the hell does Chuck have to do with anything?”

“A lot more than he wants,” I said wearily. I was tired, exhaustion settling over me like a wave, making it hard to organise my own thoughts.

“We’ll pick this up later,” Bobby said, pushing away from the armchair.

“Sam can stay here for the night,” Dean said. “I’ll run him to The Roadhouse tomorrow.”

“And he’d damn well better be there on time,” Bobby shot back, before shifting his cap on his head and heading for the door.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean called after him. I don’t know if Bobby responded; I was asleep before the words had finished tumbling past my brother’s lips.

~*~

I was woken up the next morning to the smell of bacon and eggs. My shoulders were stiff from a night on the couch, but Dean had draped a rug over me, and I had slept well. My head was muzzy. I felt like I had been yanked from the middle of an important dream, but I couldn’t remember any of it. I caught a glimpse of myself in the door of Dean’s microwave, which sat atop his refrigerator. My hair stuck out in all directions, and I made an effort to pat it smooth.

“Mornin’ Sammy,” Dean said in an extra-cheerful voice, the one he saved for when he knew I was feeling lousy. “Beautiful day today.”

“Nice to know,” I replied, my voice thick and raspy. I went over to the sink, took a glass from the draining rack, and poured myself some tap water. I stared out into the back garden as I drank. Despite living in this house for over ten years, I honestly couldn’t remember if the back patio had always stretched so far, or if the bushes by the fence had been replaced with hardier plants, or merely grown some. Dean dropped by Bobby’s far more than I dropped by the old family estate.

“I was thinkin’ we could swing by Bobby’s and grab you some clothes after breakfast,” Dean was saying as he transferred the cooked breakfast from the pan to two large plates. He likes to cut the bacon up into small pieces, and then scramble them through the eggs, which he always left a little soft and runny. He gave us two slices of toast each, though I knew he’d just pile his eggs onto the bread and have a breakfast sandwich. You could eat your food however you liked in our family, but it had to be served up respectably. Something Dad had impressed upon us, that he’d learned from Mom.

“Yeah,” I said absently, taking my plate from Dean and grabbing some cutlery from the drawer. “I need the shirt for my shift today.”

There was a pause as Dean grabbed a bottle of juice from the fridge, and I was so caught up in trying to force myself into alertness that I almost missed what he said.

“You’ll need more than that,” he said, sitting down across from me. “You should stay here a few days.”

I stared at my brother, the prongs of my fork still held lightly between my teeth. We hadn’t lived together for five years, and I couldn’t understand why he felt a need to change that.

“It’s closer to The Roadhouse,” he said, as if he were the mind reader in the family. “Be easier for me to run you to work, keep an eye on you.” He didn’t meet my eyes as he said this, focussing on constructing his sandwich.

“We don’t work the same hours,” I said. “And I don’t need you to run me to work anyway.”

“Yeah you do,” Dean said simply, and that infuriated me. “And you can talk to Ellen, get some hours shuffled.”

“Dean-”

“ _Sam_ ,” he fixed me with a sharp look, and I shut up. “Don’t go acting like everything’s fine,” he said, “because it’s not.” He dropped his eyes back down to the toast sandwich in his hands, before dropping it back to his plate, appetite lost.

“It’ll be okay,” I said, and I didn’t blame him for the dark look he shot me. “We don’t even know that I’m in any danger. We could just be shaking in our boots for nothing.”

“I’ve had enough people die on me,” he said bluntly. He had a familiar curtness to him, Dad’s no-nonsense stare. “We take no risks,” he said, and then turned his attention back to his breakfast. Conversation over. Sam Winchester, you are grounded.

I was irritated that Dean thought he could take over my life like that, however good his intentions may be. “Fine,” I said. “We take no risks. But staying at home with Bobby is safer.” I raised my hand and kept count of my reasons on my fingers. “He’s home all the time, the dogs are there, he has _guns_.”

Dean stared at me with an unreadable expression on his face. After a long moment he said, “This used to be your home.” His voice was flat, but there was something quiet and accusing in it. I looked down at my plate, unsure how to respond. He bit into his sandwich, and with his mouth half-full he added, “You’re the only family I got.”

I opened my mouth to counter that he was selling Bobby short, but closed it again. Dean was the only blood relative I knew, and I was the same to him. Bobby might have filled the role of favourite uncle, and he may be family, _but_ …

“You can’t drive me to work every morning,” I said. “I start too late for that.”

Dean shrugged. “Everyone seems to have been attacked at night.”

“I’ll need to spend some time at Bobby’s, help out there.”

“Course.”

I nodded, still a little uneasy with this arrangement. But, if our positions were reversed, I would feel the same protectiveness that was radiating from Dean. He wouldn’t have bowed anywhere near as easily as me, but we would end up with the same arrangement in the end. And maybe living with Dean for a while would be a good thing. Maybe he’d get so sick of me he’d give up on getting me out of my shell.

“You got any clean sheets for the guest room?”

Dean snorted. “I know how to do my washing, Sammy.”

But I could hear his scrabbling intention to wash some before I got home from my shift loud and clear in his head. I smiled to myself, and finished my toast.

~*~

With a duffel of the basics stowed in the guest bedroom (which, incidentally, had been my own bedroom growing up. It had experienced a paint job since then and, oddly, new curtains) and my golf tee with The Roadhouse embroidered on the chest, I was at work bright and early. Dean and I had compromised – he dropped me off early rather than be late to work, and I’d get a lift home with Andy. I didn’t mention that Andy was riding my bike these days, or that Andy was just as likely to be a victim of attack as myself. I certainly didn’t mention our psychic counsel meeting to be held that night.

I had the same key method of dealing with Dean as I’d had with Dad – he can’t get angry at me for the things he doesn’t know about.

The day was bright and warm, and I lounged in a folding chair in the parking lot, listening to a Spanish lesson on my iPod and taking some idle notes. I was determined to act like it was a normal day, even though I’d spotted Dean sneak back in to talk to Ellen after parting ways with me, even though I knew she was at that moment pondering who to call to cover the ends of my late shifts – Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Lisa, the only other staff member with enough experience to handle the busy evenings, taught a yoga class on Thursdays, and I knew she wouldn’t want to cut into her mommy-time by taking Tuesday night. I had already arranged to swap my Sunday shift for her Saturday one the coming weekend, for Bobby’s birthday. The Roadhouse would be closing early, so Ellen, Jo, and possibly Ash could come by for an afternoon of food and beer. Lisa would miss the good tips of Saturday evening, but she wouldn’t miss being on her feet for nearly twelve hours. That was the problem with working at a place that closed when the last customer left – some nights went on forever.

I was sun-warmed without being burned when I headed inside at ten-forty five. I made myself a mug of tea, and drank it standing in the hall, leaning against the wall opposite Ellen’s desk. She made a face at me as she talked on the phone, but didn’t shoo me away. I finished my drink before she finished her conversation, and I placed my mug in the kitchen, and then went back down the hall to the linen closet to grab a clean apron for my shift. I keep a pen and notepad with my name on them in the big bottom drawer of Ellen’s desk, which she sets aside for her staff to put wallets and handbags in. I shoved them into the pocket at the front of my apron just as she hung up the phone.

“You know Dean’s just being overprotective, right?” I asked, giving her a firm yet exasperated look.

“I dunno what you’re talking about,” she said, searching through the piles of paper on her desk for the roster. “But it turns out Ben has some school thing coming up, and since Lisa’s missing out on big tips this weekend, I’m swapping the second half of your Friday shift with her Thursday morning.” She lifted up a stack of bills in her outbox, found the book our hours were recoded in, and made the relevant changes. “Don’t make that face at me, Sam Winchester,” she said without looking up. “I’m your boss not your mother, and sulking at me won’t change a damn thing.” She looked up at me then, brown eyes and a mouth that curled slightly at one corner like she was fighting a smile. “Now, what’s this about Dean and you makin’ him worry?”

I rolled my eyes, and headed out to the bar room to check that the tables were wiped and the salt shakers were filled. Ellen and I didn’t say anything more on the subject.

Ash and I chatted idly as he waited for the flat top to warm and got some chicken tenders set to marinating in a big bowl in the fridge. He got me up to date with all of his TV shows. I don’t watch a lot of television by nature, but Ash was addicted to it. He watched everything from true crime shows to the Disney channel. I’ve tried watching some of the shows he raves about, but somehow it’s never quite as entertaining to watch the events on screen as it is to hear Ash recount them with his cursing and his spatula waving in the air. Plus, he always has this conspiratorial air when it comes to his stories, as if he’s letting me in on a big secret by telling me what Perry is _really_ doing while Phineas and Ferb enjoy their summer vacation.

We had a few customers over lunch, few patrons even for a Sunday, and Cassie joined the tail-end of the lunch crowd at one. I smiled at her, and she took a table relatively near the bar though I could pick right out of her head that she’d rather be sitting near one of the windows, enjoying the spring sunlight.

“Sometimes I think we should get outdoor seating,” I said by way of greeting. “Days like this are too nice not to enjoy.”

“I worked at a café with sidewalk seating during college,” she replied. “The sunlight isn’t worth cleaning up after the birds. How you doing, Sam?”

“I’m great,” I replied. “And yourself?”

“Starving,” she said, shooting me a grin. “I could eat a horse.”

“I’m afraid we got none of those on the menu at the moment, but the chicken basket is pretty filling if you order a side salad. Or you could always ask for a staff burger.”

“What’s on the staff burger?”

“Anything we can find in the kitchen,” I replied easily. “That’s why it’s the staff burger, you can’t let just anyone crack open a tin of pineapple.”

She gave me a wry smile. “Sounds like a serious burger. You sure you can go offering that to just anyone?”

I shrugged at her. “You’re not just anyone,” I replied. The unspoken explanation was that she was Dean’s other-half (for the moment) and that I liked her enough to share what few staff powers I had. She smiled softly at me, and I felt a wave of gentle guilt from her that I instinctively tapped in to. She hadn’t stopped by The Roadhouse because it was convenient.

“You’ve got to be working for the family,” I continued as I ducked down to wipe some spilled salt off the table. “Dean sent you to check up on me?”

Cassie slumped back in her chair, and raised her hands as if to say ‘well, I tried’. “I’ll never make it as a spy at this rate,” she said.

“Any other family, you probably would have infiltrated with ease.”

She smiled ruefully at me. “I would have gotten away with it, if it weren’t for those snooping Winchesters!” I laughed, and headed over to the window to the kitchen to tell Ash to cook up one of his secret recipes for her.

I had her order, piping hot on my tray ten minutes later, and delivered it to her gladly. She gestured for me to sit down and, as the bar was pretty quiet, I took a minute to keep her company and steal her fries. She leaned forwards to rest her elbows on the table before picking up her cutlery. “He just wanted to make sure you were fine after your fall last night.” I winced at the realisation that my collapse was public knowledge. “I don’t know why, you look as strong as an ox.”

“Big brothers,” I said, trying to get my game face back on. “Being overprotective is a hard habit to break.”

“Dean must be damn overprotective if he’s got you moved in with him just because you took a tumble.” I froze for a moment. Cassie was bright, and easy to talk to, but she was no fool. I would have to learn to stay aware of her inquisitive mind. Whether she sensed my unease, or merely had wanted to make a point, she switched the topic of conversation completely. “Will I need to bring anything for this weekend?”

I shook my head. “No, we’ve got it covered. But if you want to bring something, a salad that isn’t potato-based would be appreciated. And we’ll only grab beer, so I guess if you want to bring anything else to drink that would be fine.”

She nodded, and bit into the monster burger before her with gusto. I could see egg, bacon, pineapple, what looked like beetroot, along with the usual beef patty and salad. She made a noise of appreciation, and had a smear of sauce by her mouth as she chewed. While I had no doubt that Dean was more than good enough for Cassie, I had never known what held them together as a couple beyond sexual attraction and an interest in one another’s lives. But Cassie was a good person, who understood the importance of family, and loved a good burger. If I had to pick three traits that defined my brother in a nutshell, those would be the ones.

I left Cassie to her lunch, and took care of those who needed more drinks and those who needed the bill. The lunch crowd had gone by two-thirty, when Andy started, and the two of us cleaned the tables and bar until they were spotless. I even managed to run the broom around the floor quickly while there was no one around for me to trip up but myself. It looked like it would be a dull Sunday afternoon, but Dean came in around three with about eight other people and, following the law of crowds (in which if a person sees a small crowd in any place, they’ll walk in to see what the fuss is all about) we soon had about twenty people needing drinks and fries.

Being my brother, Dean didn’t tip, and Dean had a habit of placing an order as if he were a general and I were a lowly private. _Skip to it, Sammy._ To be fair, I have bad habits of my own, but I don’t drag them into his place of work. So, despite the crowd he brought and the charming smile on his face, I was less than impressed with Dean that evening. He’d come in to keep an eye on me, to touch base with Ellen about my hours for the coming week, and to collect me from work like I wasn’t smart enough to wait for him like we’d agreed.

Which is exactly why, at five-thirty when I threw my apron into the hamper and Dean was chatting to Ellen about small town affairs, I followed Andy out the employee exit, and headed off into the early evening without telling my brother a damn thing.

Ash was in the parking lot, frowning at his motorbike. It was an old postman’s bike, and was held together with wire and determination. He looked up as Andy and I walked past. “Not going home with Dean?” he asked.

“Tell him I got a better offer,” I called over my shoulder, and Ash snorted in response. I could feel him tuck the intention to let Dean know I was off with Andy into his mental to-do list, and I pushed the issue out of my mind completely.

The Wilson family live on the opposite side of town to The Roadhouse. In fact, they were two blocks back from Main, and since Main is only about six blocks long it took us maybe fifteen minutes to get to Ava’s house. She was sitting at the front window of the living room, looking absently through the curtains. I saw her perk up when she spotted us, and I couldn’t help smiling. I could feel Andy bubble with happiness beside me. She let us in, a wide grin on her pretty face, and insisted on getting us glasses of juice despite her arm, which I could sense was aching.

I could feel two other brains in the house – her sister quietly occupied upstairs, and her father in the study across the way from the living room. He looked busy, what little of him we spotted through the partially closed doorway, but his brain was thrumming with intent. He was chaperoning our meeting, whether Ava liked it or not.

“How was work?” Ava asked when Andy and I were settled on the couch, her perched at right angles to us on an armchair. We made small chit-chat for ten minutes, eating cookies and drinking juice. None of us realised we were waiting for something until there was a timid knock at the front door. Chuck stood there, his hair combed and a clean shirt buttoned over his tee (though his jeans had what looked like a drink stain just above one knee). He sat in the spare armchair, and for the moment we sat there in silence, basking in one another’s company. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. Peace settled over me, and something in my chest loosened. The smile on my face softened from mad enthusiasm to happy contentment.

“Why are we like this?” Andy asked. “Why are we better together?” He was thinking that the four of us together felt better than a mild dope buzz, though he wasn’t willing to rate us any higher just yet.

“It’s feedback,” Ava said. I looked over at her, but her eyes were closed. She looked relaxed and calm. “I think what we do is all just energy, moving around.” She wriggled in the chair, like a cat making itself comfortable. “Other people’s essence gets caught up in us. But when we’re together, it’s just us. It’s pure.”

It made sense to me, and I was impressed that Ava had explained it all so neatly. I got caught in the webbed energy of people’s thoughts, Andy pulled on the threads of intention, Chuck followed lines of people’s futures. And Ava? Maybe she could interact with the energy left behind.

“The others?” I asked, meaning the other people like us.

“They were all alone,” Chuck said. “They never found it.”

No one had to ask what ‘it’ was. This feeling, this unity. Of course the other victims had all been on the move. They’d all been trying to get closer to this feeling of beauty, this wonderment that washed over us.

“You kids want dinner?” Mr Wilson asked from the doorway. He was radiating disapproval, glaring at Chuck in particular. The writer-slash-illustrator wasn’t much older than me, but he’d been classed as too old to hang out with Ava by her father.

Chuck’s mind was a resigned sigh. He was used to people disapproving of him. That made me angry, though I was aware that I had been guilty of that judgement myself in the past. Chuck may not be a model citizen, but hell, none of us were. We all did the best with the hand we were dealt, no matter how it fucked us up. And the shit we had to deal with? We freaking _tried_ to be normal, to play by rules that twisted us, that were never designed with players like us in mind. And then everyone else had the freaking gall to stare at us like we were goddamned _freaks_ -

One of the glasses on the table shattered, spilling juice and glass over the polished wood. We stared at it in shock as the mess dripped down onto the carpet.

“Dad,” Ava said, her voice quavering. “Could you get a towel, please?” He went, and in his absence none of us could meet each other’s eyes.

“Feedback, huh?” Andy commented.

“That might have been me,” I said. “I was feeling pretty pissed.”

“No,” Ava said. “Things like that… they’ve happened before.” Her head was ducked down. She was ashamed of the lack of control she felt this event represented. I looked at her intently, then I lifted my chin and made a point of feeling _pride_.

“That,” Andy said, siding out of his seat to start picking glass out of the carpet, “was pretty damn awesome.” Another wave of positivity.

Chuck struggled through his usual cloud of pessimism for something positive to say. “This could be pretty useful,” he said at last. “This could be pretty freaking badass.” His face split into a grin then, and I was surprised to note that his teeth were white and straight, that his eyes sparkled a bright blue. Ava looked up then, meeting Chuck’s eyes, and we all felt happier. We all felt confident, and powerful, and loved. All the things we’d been missing.

Ava stood up to take the roll of paper towels from her father. “Thanks Dad,” she said brightly. “I think we’ll order pizza and eat it in here. We have a lot of catching up to do.” She smiled at him, looking happy and normal. From his crouch in front of the coffee table, Andy bowed his head, and I felt a little force in his brainwaves.

“Sure,” her father said. “There are vouchers on the fridge.” Then he turned away, headed back to his office, and closed the door.

“That was easy,” Andy said, taking a square of paper towel and tipping his palm-full of glass shards onto it. “It’s never been that easy before.”

“Let’s hope it’s not easier for them to find us,” Chuck said from his chair. Rather than being a wet blanket, Chuck was being realistic. Who knew how the Others were tracking us. If they followed the charge of energy that surrounded just one of us… And then I had a wonderful idea.

“Why don’t we find them?” The other three turned and looked at me. “We have a girl who talks to dead people, a guy who sees the _future_. We can find out what happened, what’s going to.”

Ava had paused in wiping the small table clean, but she resumed it as she turned the idea over in her mind. She was reluctant to use her gift in front of us. She was pretty confident it would alienate us completely. At the same time, with us here, she thought she might be able to wield some control.

“I’m game,” she said at last. “If the other two who were killed nearby were like us, their spirits might be stronger.” I got the impression that was a good thing.

I looked over at Chuck, and he looked back at me with a helpless expression on his face. “I hate this,” he said at last. “If I could turn it off, I would.”

“It’ll stop when you’re dead,” Andy said flatly. “Which is an option I’d like to avoid.”

Chuck still looked awkward and uneasy. “I’ve never… done it intentionally,” he said at last. “I don’t even know how to direct it.”

I turned that over in my mind. “How do your visions usually happen?”

“I feel kind of… tingly,” he said at last. He was aware of how stupid that sounded, and ready to dig his heels in if we belittled him or his choice of words. “And then I get a headache. Then I usually drink myself unconscious, though that part’s optional.” He drank to try and keep the dreams away. It never worked. “Then, when I’m asleep, it comes to me. I wake up with it all in my head. And I can’t get it out.”

I could feel Chuck’s revulsion at his visions, his fear of them. “They weren’t all bad though, right?” I inquired. “Before the killings.”

He shook his head. “Knowing it’s real, they’ll always be creepy now. But there were some…” Chuck usually thought in images, but whatever was going through his mind was safely tucked away behind a curtain. “They weren’t all like they are now,” he finished awkwardly.

“Okay then,” Andy said. “We stop these stupid-ass killings, things go back to sugar and spice. That should be motivation enough.”

Chuck nodded but his reluctance wasn’t expelled. I searched through my memories of our past conversations for a reason, since Chuck wasn’t offering one up himself.

“Your visions,” I said at last. “I asked you if they always turned out the way you saw them…”

I felt gloom and horror flood out from Chuck like a dam had burst. He swallowed thickly. “I’ve tried to intervene,” he said quietly. “In the past. I’ve see things too big to ignore, or I’ve seen things happening to me.” There was a twist of pain there, quick and sharp. “It… no matter _what_ I did… It never gets better,” he said at last. “Usually, it’s just a vague idea, you know?” We didn’t, having no experiences with visions ourselves, but we all nodded as if we understood. “I think those are intentions, like something big is being lined up and I’m seeing the person stuck in the sights. But then… It’s like I’m seeing the final draft of the event. And then I can’t stop it, just change it. If someone is going to die,” he looked down there, his fingers twisting together, “they die. And their way out is never any kinder.”

We sat in silence, absorbing this. In a way, it made sense. If events in the future were predetermined enough for people like Chuck to tap into the programming guide, then of course they would be near-impossible to change.

“What about the intentions?” Ava asked. “Can you change them?”

Chuck shook his head. “I never get enough detail to be able to make a difference. No location, no time.” Chuck scrubbed a hand over his face. “It just taunts me.”

I could feel Andy’s brain click to some kind of great idea, and turned to him expectantly. “I think,” he said slowly, “that things can only look better after pizza.”

We all agreed, and Ava reached for the phone.

~*~

Dean was waiting by the front door when Chuck dropped me off. Andy waved at me from the backseat, and Chuck’s little lemon puttered away, leaving me to deal with Dean’s anger.

“What the hell was that about?” he asked, kicking the door shut behind us.

I opened my mouth to give him a smart-ass response, to drive home to him that my life was my own to lead. Then I reconsidered. Dean was angry because he was worried, and he was worried because he cared for me, and I had no intention to spit on that.

“They can help,” I said simply.

“Them?” Dean gestured wildly. “The town drunk and a pot head?”

I opened my mouth to add Ava to the list, but we hadn’t discussed revealing one another’s secrets, and I figured it would be rude to do so. “People who know what’s going on,” I said instead. “And let’s face it, an assassin looking for _me?_ It’s not like anyone else is going to believe me.”

Dean frowned, but I could feel him reining his anger in. “Don’t you disappear on me again,” he said.

“Okay,” I agreed easily. “But you’ve gotta ease up the guard dog act.”

Dean gave me a long, appraising look. “Alright,” he said eventually. We shook on it, in the yellow light of Dean’s kitchen. Neither of us fully trusted the other. Which was fair, since neither of us intended to stick to our word.


	7. Chapter 7

The next day, a Monday, dawned clear and bright. Dean dropped me off at Bobby’s nice and early, before heading off to work himself. We had agreed that Bobby shouldn’t be left alone in the days before his birthday, but I think Dean had honestly just accepted that shackling me to the couch in his house wasn’t going to work. He bent his head towards Bobby as the older man sat drinking his coffee, and by tuning my brain in their direction I was able to get the gist of the filling in he was doing. Bobby nodded, and Dean left shortly afterwards.

“It was damn stupid,” Bobby said, “Dean changing your hours.”

I fidgeted a little as I cleared the sink. “It’s not like I really need the money at the moment,” I said.

“Not that. You shouldn’t be changing your movements. You’ll tip them off.”

That was something I hadn’t thought of.

“I got a call from Ellen yesterday, asking why Dean wanted you home before dark all of a sudden. I told her your idiot brother was getting spooked about the stabbings, and that you’d be driving home from now on. So aside from Friday and Saturday, your roster ain’t changed.”

“Thanks, Bobby.”

Bobby looked up from his paper then, and his stare was a weighty one. One loud thought rang across his brain. _I wish like hell your dad were here._

My throat was a little thick when I nodded at him. “I wish he were, too,” I said. “But I’m glad I’ve got you. And Dean.”

Bobby stared at me a moment longer, then shook his head and looked back down at the paper. “Knowing you can do that don’t make it any less creepy,” he said at last, but his voice was gruff and sulky, and there was no real distaste behind the words.

“You just wait until I get better at it,” I said with a grin. I jogged upstairs then, grabbing my textbooks and my iPod. I had a Spanish essay due Wednesday morning, and I wanted to e-mail it off the following night. “I’m heading to work to study,” I called as I tumbled back downstairs.

“No hard liquor before lunch,” Bobby called back over his shoulder, and I laughed as I headed out into the spring sunshine, and folded myself into my car.

~*~

The Roadhouse was dark and quiet before opening. The building had wide windows running along three walls, but in the morning the sun came from the back, and we needed the fluorescent lights on full to avoid bumping into dark coloured furniture that blended in with the shadows. Ellen was dusting the bottles behind the bar when I came in, the radio playing louder than it would once we officially opened. We nodded at each other, and I settled at one of the round tables in the middle of the bar, directly under the lights, and put my earbuds in.

It was hard to find the motivation to study, when I’d be having a class of a different sort later that night. Ava and I would be meeting up when I got off work to try and tweak our respective powers. Ava didn’t want to use her gift around Andy for fear of scaring him off, and while I had nothing against Chuck, I assumed that working with him on this would be an uphill battle, so it made sense for us two to team up. We had no mission statement of what we hoped to achieve, but there was certainly something I wanted to try…

Andy was working the double shift, as usual, and I packed my things away when he came in. Throughout my shift, I could feel us working together better than usual. The minds around me didn’t tire me out so much, and when I did feel my shields getting weakened Andy would brush past me, and with his touch came the impression of fingers pressing at my temples, holding my head together. We’d all talked about our abilities a lot the previous night, and Andy was using his own powers of persuasion to buck me up. In return, I cast my mind wider, picked up more irks and cues from his customers. I couldn’t beam the knowledge into his head, but I could fill him in with a few words, or sometimes with a jerk of my head.

Ellen noticed that we were more efficient than usual. Given my shaky nights of late, I guess any sign of competence would have been conspicuous. “I don’t know what you guys are doin’,” she commented as she mixed up a pitcher of mojitos, “but keep it up.”

Jo replaced Ellen at four, and I stayed back until five-thirty as there was an after work drinks-and-dinner rush, but it looked like it would be a quiet, stale night for the two of them. I was nervous as I peeled off my apron, and on the short drive to Ava’s house. Her father had tennis after work with his friends, and her sister had cleared out of the house upon request. Ava had put off moving back out to her share house, aware that being back with her friends would make it harder to practice, to find private time to talk with the rest of us.

“Okay,” she said as the two of us settled, cross-legged on the bed. “How should we do this?”

I looked around her room with interest. It was only the second time I’d been in a girl’s room, post-puberty. One wall was taken up with a giant bookcase, the other was dominated by a built-in wardrobes. Her bed was pressed against a third wall, and a window sat neatly in the fourth. The walls were cream, the curtains were white with a pattern of red flowers, and the architraves at the top of the walls were painted a deep pink to match.

“Well,” I said, tearing my gaze away and returning to the subject at hand. “I was thinking I should probably know all about the night you were stabbed.”

Her face crumpled for a moment, but she forced her expression back into line with fierce determination. Ava was not someone who liked feeling weak. “I’ve already told everyone everything I can remember.”

“I know,” I said. I reached up slowly, and placed a hand on either side of her face. “I was thinking, maybe you could show me instead.”

Ava froze, but my calm confidence soothed her, and I was careful not to let it waver. “What do I need to do?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said with a nervous laugh. “I’ve never done this before. Just… think about the night it happened, go through all of your memories of it. Slowly and carefully. I’ll just be along for the ride.”

Ava took a deep breath, and nodded as much as my hands on her face would allow. Then, I was plunged into her memories of that night.

 _Andy was standing behind the bar, glancing up at Ava with a look that she thought was coy. In her mind, I could see him as handsome. Dark, messy hair atop a clear, cheeky face. He smiled a lot, and she liked that. Liked that he made an effort to look good for her. Liked that he liked talking to her, that she hardly ever caught him staring at her boobs. He made a joke, and she laughed, and she loved how good that felt._

 _I saw myself in her memory, stumbling past the bar and into the employee area, looking pale and sweaty. She’d worried about me, wondered if I were sick. But then Andy was talking to her again. They were talking about music. He liked psychedelic rock, fantasy metal, where albums were filled with songs about ‘The Lord of the Rings’. Ava thought that was incredibly dorky, but she liked the way Andy explained it to her, his enthusiasm._

 _An hour passed, The Roadhouse was closing. Andy was offering to drive her home. Ava was asking if he really lived out of his van, how he washed. Andy offered to show her, the back of his van that is. There was a mattress in the back, a nest of blankets that were worn and smelled of dope, but were clean. Andy switched on the fairy lights he ran off a small generator, and Ava thought that his van was just like the fort every kid wished they had. She thought she’d like Andy to kiss her, and when he didn’t, she leaned forwards and closed the distance herself._

 _It was strange, being in Ava’s mind. I could feel the memory of Andy’s lips against hers as if they were against mine. While I had no romantic inclinations towards Andy myself, I could feel her thrill at his lips against hers, her arousal when he gripped her hip with one hand. The fear that they would move too fast too soon, the desire to press against Andy, the dirty excitement at making out in the back of a van when anyone could walk by and hear._

 _She was thinking about having sex with Andy, riding him and making the van shake. Exhibitionism where no one could see them. She thought Andy would probably be good at sex, better than the boy who had been her first. And Ava was more confident this time, she would be willing to tell him what to do, how to make her feel good. In her memory she grabbed his wrist, raised his hand higher so that he was fondling her breast, and both Ava and I gasped at the sensation of the memory._

 _I could feel embarrassment colouring Ava’s mind a rosy pink, and the memory skipped ahead. Andy had pulled over a block away from her house, because she didn’t want her housemates to see the van, to see Andy and her own dishevelled clothes that smelled of dope and a little sweat. She walked around to the driver’s side, and kissed Andy through the open window. A deep kiss, tongues in mouths and body perking up in interest at the promise of another round of touching and pressing. Then she pulled away with a smile and walked towards her home without a backwards glance. Confident, sated, happy. She had only passed three houses, when a hand shot out of an alley between houses and yanked her out of the thin light cast by streetlights._

 _The hand was strong and merciless. It yanked her right off her feet and threw her down onto the rough concrete of the path. Ava stumbled and fell over, her bare knees getting scraped on the ground, the side of her thigh as her skirt rode up. She looked up in the darkness, could see the brightness of a white shirt bisected by the dark line of a tie. She could make out the silhouette of a suit, a male body. The light was behind him, and his face was lost in shadow._

 _His arm twitched and Ava looked down. In his hand was a sword._

 _Ava opened her mouth to scream, but she could only make small, choked noises. She thought she was going to get raped, thought it was so unfair that a night that had been so pleasurable could go so horribly, horribly wrong. Then the arm pulled back, the tip of the sword was raised to her throat, and Ava realised that no, it wasn’t her virtue at risk. It was her life. I could feel my own heart pounding in echo of hers, the icy sweat across our lower backs, the desperate heaving of our lungs, unable to suck in enough air to make anything louder than those awful pitiful sounds. The man reached towards her with his free hand, two fingers extended, and Ava glared at him._

 _“Go on,” she hissed. “Go on, _go on_.” She didn’t want to be scared, didn’t want her last moments to be drawn out this way._

The man pulled his arm back, his body twisting ready to thrust. He paused again for a long moment, and I could feel Ava’s features shift to an angry, defiant look. He turned his face away, and thrust towards her. The tip of the blade dropped in the thrust, the aim went wide, and Ava screamed as the blade tore through her bicep.

Without looking back at her, the man pulled his sword free, and walked past her down the dim alleyway. She turned to stare after him, her free hand clutching her wounded arm. He stooped near the other end of the alley, picking something up. As he stepped out onto the quiet street, a streetlamp illuminated his left side. A coat was draped over his arm. He turned to the right to walk away, and the light reflected off the short sword he held in his hand, still tacky with her blood.

Ava stayed on her knees for a long moment, gasping and shaking, feeling cold everywhere except her arm, which burned. Then she forced herself onto her feet, and stumbled back out of the alley, back towards Andy, and his van, and those good feelings she was sure she’d never regain.

Her memories faded to black, and the sensations of the real world filtered in. Ava and I had our foreheads pressed together, breathing each other’s air with short, sharp gasps. Slowly I began to pull away from her, lowering my hands from her face, letting my fingertips brush along her cheeks before letting my hands rest in front of my crossed legs. After a moment, she placed her hands in mine. We sat there for a long moment, composing ourselves, sifting through the scenes we’d shared.

“I didn’t think you were the kind to smoke,” I said at last.

Ava shrugged, not yet ready to look into my eyes. “No one ever gave me the opportunity before,” she replied. Eventually she looked up at me, and her face was pleading. “Don’t tell Andy I’m so crazy about him, alright?”

I smiled at her, and squeezed her hands. “He thinks you’re too cool to be crazy about him,” I said.

Ava smiled, and blushed. “Okay then,” she said, straightening her shoulders and lifting her chin. “My turn.”

Ava reached down beside her bed, and pulled up a sandwich bag full of dirt. “It helps if I’m near the place they died, or something they thought was important. Growing up, I mainly saw people’s grandmothers and things, because of jewellery being passed down and stuff, or the wrong child getting the good china.” She grabbed a mug from her bedside table, and carefully poured the dirt into it. “If someone died in the place, it works even better. So…”

“So you got dirt from the site where one of the bodies was found?”

Ava smiled at me, looking cheeky. “A girl has to do something with her free time,” she replied. She shuffled around on the bed, making herself comfortable. She took a few deep, calming breaths, and tucked the fingers of one hand into the loose, moist earth. She exhaled, one long slow sigh, and her eyes fell closed.

I didn’t know what to expect, whether her body would contort, or if her head would turn around. The air around her seemed to get colder, her face grew still as if she herself were dead. There was a feeling of being alone in the room. Unnerved, I reached out and circled my fingers around her wrists, desperate to feel her pulse, some sign of life. When my skin touched hers images flashed into my mind. A young man, his face twisted in a scowl. A bright field, the smell of blossoms. Laughter, a kite in the air. Lightning. No, a blade in the moonlight. The smell of pine. Wet dirt pressing against my face. The smell of blood. The sound of laughter. Darkness.

I pulled away, and Ava opened her eyes. She frowned, unhappy with her experience. “Usually they speak to me,” she said. “They have some message about their life, or their death.”

“What kind of stuff do they say?”

She looked at me with a wry smile. “Usually they’re just pretty pissed about being dead. But this…” she looked down at the mug of dirt, her fingers still inserted in the earth. “There was anger, but it was vague. It was like he wasn’t completely aware he’d died.”

I turned that over in my mind, wondering what it could mean. How could you not notice being stabbed through the neck? The other memories, the brighter ones, they felt old somehow. They weren’t memories of his death, they were memories he’d been caught up in when he’d died. I wondered what the significance of them was.

“Did you want to try again?” I asked hesitantly. Ava considered it, and then nodded.

“Maybe you could kind of direct me?” she suggested. “You’re more used to being in people’s heads than I am.”

I shrugged one shoulder. “I can try.”

“Alright,” she said, straightening her shoulders again. “Let’s do this.”

~*~

I was home just after dark, and Bobby shot me a warning look as I slid into the kitchen. It was chilli and rice for dinner, and we ate in silence. Bobby was a good cook in his own right, and the warm food helped bring me back down from the giddy high of stretching my creepy brain powers. Bobby was lost in his own thoughts as he ate, and while I could sense they were nothing especially private, I was too caught up in my own thoughts be distracted by the workings of his brain.

Ava and I had managed to sort through the muddled memories of, well, I guess he was a ghost. The impressions of someone who had been alive, and now wasn’t. It remembered the moment it had realised it was dead, forest floor pressed into its body’s open mouth. It immersed itself in those happy tangled memories that had distracted it during the lethal blow. It remembered a serious expression finding it in the night, a hand touching its face.

“What’s got you looking so serious?” Bobby asked. We both ignored the obvious answer.

“I was just wondering,” I said. “If you get stabbed from up close, how can you not notice it coming? How could you be caught unawares?”

Bobby shrugged. “Attacker could jump out of nowhere, or be really fast.” He chewed a mouthful of chilli. “Usually though, if there’s no struggle, the victim knew their attacker, or didn’t think they were a threat.”

I turned that over in my mind. Others were fast, and stealthy. I thought about the face I’d seen in both Ava’s and the ghost’s memories. A plain, handsome face. Serious blue eyes that a soul would trust immediately. That _I_ had trusted.

My Other, the murderer.

~*~

I forced myself to spend the next morning working on my essay. It was my last assignment for the course; after it I would just have an exam which would be e-mailed to me and that I would need to mail back. I told myself that focussing on the real world for a while was important, that handsome men and their lies could be ignored for just a moment.

In truth, it wasn’t the killing that angered me. That violence just left me feeling cold. No, it was that he had spent time with me, that we had gotten to know one another. Is that what he did with all of his victims? Made friends with them so they’d never suspect his betrayal? It was probably just as well he had no real social skills. If he did, I’d probably be dead already.

Okay, so maybe I wasn’t doing the best job of ignoring him, but I was still getting work done, still spent the calm Tuesday morning fixing up the first draft of my essay and then pulling on my work uniform and getting myself to work for the lunch crowd. I may have had trouble keeping orders in my head, because soon Jo shoved me behind the bar and she and Lisa took the floor. I mixed drinks and cleared plates from tables, while the ladies took care of the social side of waitressing. While I was grateful to them for covering my absent-mindedness, I was a little irked all the same. I had enjoyed the distraction that my work brought, the little things that took my mind off the bigger problems.

I got Ash to cook me up a Cajun chicken burger for my dinner, and took it and a diet Coke into the office where I spent half an hour of my forty-five minute break making the final changes to my essay about Latino music in America and its influence on stereotypes. I was all set to e-mail it off (not my best work ever, but good enough, and as complete as it was going to get) when I ran into one roadblock that I should have seen coming. The internet was down. The router was working fine, but the modem said there was no connectivity. I sighed, and packed up my laptop, shoving it in its case.

There were two phone lines going to The Roadhouse – one for the phone, one for the internet. For some reason, the phone company had slung the internet line several feet below the phone line. As a result, the internet often got knocked out by kids hitting the line with sticks, or throwing shoes at it. Just enough force to knock it loose. Since I was the one who used the wifi the most, I always got the job of going outside and jiggling the cable until the connection came back. I’d discovered that it was a lot easier to take my laptop with me to detect when the connection was re-established than to run inside every few minutes to check.

When I stepped outside though, I saw that there was a very different cause of the drop out.

There were two men, two Others, circling one another in the staff car park. They had swords in their hands, and the phone line had been cut clean in half, part of it dragging along the ground.

I stood frozen by the door, watching. The Other, my Other, had blood on his face from a cut across his nose. He did not look like he was coming off the better in this fight. The other person was the Other I’d seen in that same stretch of gravel, the thin and swarthy man who had given instructions on Saturday night. Something had obviously changed between them. I pressed myself back against the door, trying hard not to be noticed.

“You should have followed your orders,” the lean and swarthy Other said, and then he lunged forwards. My Other countered his parry a little clumsily. Their swords were short, though I had no doubt they were sharp, and the crossing blades meant that the two bodies were close enough to trade punches, to shove and trip one another up. It was a messy fight, but the sheer speed and determination of it made it elegant.

“Our orders have not been just,” my Other replied. He shoved his opponent with his shoulder, and used the force to spin around behind the Other’s back, where he punched him in the head. A dirty move, and one that made his opposition stumble forward a few paces.

“It is not your place to pass judgement,” came the hissed response, and my Other had to dodge several fast sweeps of the sword.

“Who else will question such commands?” my Other asked, backing up several steps to avoid more thrusts. He watched his opponent carefully, waiting for a moment of weakness.

The opponent darted forward then, ducking low to avoid a clumsy sweep of a sword, and aiming a neat kick to my Other’s ankle. He went down onto one knee, and the Other grabbed his head, and drove his knee into my Other’s face with a sickening crunch. After the blow, my Other looked dazed, blood poured freely from his nose, and his sword dropped out of his hand. His opponent kicked it away, and took a step back. He held his arm out, sword extended. The tip of it hovered at my Other’s throat, just above the loosened knot of his tie.

I realised then why all of the bodies had been stabbed through the neck. It was an execution.

“You have no _faith_ ,” the opponent hissed, as if that were some terrible crime, and reached forwards to tangle his fingers in my Other’s hair again, holding him in place. My Other didn’t resist, just looked up at his companion with dazed blue eyes.

I moved then. I didn’t consciously decide to, but suddenly I was darting across the gravel, my laptop bag gripped tightly in my hands. I lifted it high, and brought it down on the opponent’s head with an almighty crack. The opponent stumbled forwards, and my Other looked up at me in surprise. The opponent turned then, saw me and his face darkened. He opened his mouth in a snarl and raised his sword. I was frozen to the spot, all I could do was raise my laptop bag up to try and deflect the blow. The tip of the sword tore right through it, bag, laptop and all, and came to a stop two inches from my nose. I stared at it, my heart pounding, and then there was a blinding flash from the other side of my laptop, so bright I had to squeeze my eyes shut and turn my face away.

My arms were yanked down as the opponent fell, his sword pulling free as he hit the ground. Behind him stood my Other, sword in hand, staring down at his companion. The dead man had a hole through his neck. He had a hole, right there. It was wet and red against his shirt, but no blood poured out. It was probably all coming out of the hole at the back, I thought, and I had to take a step backwards because I felt so dizzy. There was something wrong with the gravel, I thought as my gaze kept slipping to one side. The gravel didn’t look right.

“Is he dead?” I asked.

“Yes,” the Other replied.

“He was trying to kill you.”

“Yes.” The Other crouched down beside his fallen companion, his sword getting tucked about his person as he lowered himself to inspect the body. “Thank you,” he said at last. He looked up at me then, blood dripping from his nose and his eyes a bright, electric blue. “My name is Castiel,” he said in that low, wrecked voice of his. He pronounced his name as three clear syllables: Cas- _ti_ -el. It made me shiver, made my stomach twist with feelings I couldn’t put a name to. “And I am in your debt.”

I tore my eyes away from him, away from the calm that was trying to settle over me. I looked down at the dead body, at the shadows that had been cast across the gravel. My voice shook a little when I spoke. “What the hell is going on?”

The Other, Castiel, stooped and picked the body up, hefting its weight easily though the man had been taller than him. “You should leave,” he said.

“What’s going on?” I asked again, my voice a little louder. We stared at one another for a long moment, my brown eyes boring into his blue ones.

“I will come to you,” he said at last, “and I will explain.”

He turned away then, and walked towards the woods at the edge of the parking lot. I watched him go, but somehow he slipped out of my vision just before he was swallowed up by the trees. I stared down at the gravel, the pattern there making me sick. I spent a few moments furiously kicking the small stones around, trying to obliterate the shape that kept dancing at the corners of my eyes.

The shape of a pair of wings.

~*~

I woke up sluggishly the next morning. Usually I would quite happily lie in bed until my brain kicked into gear – Wednesdays are my day off, after all – but I felt too restless to lie in bed all day. Also, thanks to the presence of a freaking _sword_ through my laptop, I had a lost essay to rewrite and nothing to type it on. I lay staring up at my ceiling for a long moment, before huffing out a sigh. Okay, Sam, problems don’t solve themselves. Time to get up.

I padded downstairs in my sleep clothes, and made a big pot of porridge with apple and cinnamon. Anyone who thinks that men don’t comfort eat just isn’t paying enough attention. Bobby had gotten up before me, and was grunting at his old computer in the office. He refuses to update the machine, even though it’s painfully slow and stupid. He says it’s a needless expense since it works just fine; Dean says he doesn’t want to lose all of his DOS games.

God, even Bobby’s computer was better than my ruined plastic and circuit boards.

“That you, Sam?” he called down the hall.

“No,” I yelled back.

“There’s a package for you.” I cast my eyes at the kitchen table. Nope, still bare. “I left it on the front porch,” he continued, still yelling from his office. “Old man like me, ow, my back, et cetera.”

I rolled my eyes, and shuffled down the hall – warm already, spring was heating up – to the front door with its dusty glass panels. Bobby was right, there was indeed a package. Wrapped with plain brown paper, no ribbon or card. My name was written right on the wrapping, and the parcel was oddly shaped. Mostly rectangular, but with no hard lines. I frowned at it, wondering what it could be.

It was heavy, that much was obvious when I picked it up and carried it back to the kitchen just in time to stop my breakfast boiling over and engulfing the stove. Just great. I had to take a long moment to sort that disaster out, managing to save just enough for my breakfast, though the pot would need to soak and the stovetop might never be the same again. I ate my breakfast slowly and savoured a cup of coffee before turning my attention back to the parcel. I didn’t know whether it would be an upturn after my morning so far, or if it would follow the present trend and explode in my face.

It was a leather messenger bag. And inside the messenger bag was a brand spanking new laptop. Well, three guesses who it was from. While the wary part of my brain warned me to be cautious of such an expensive gift from someone who _killed people_ , the side of my brain that had been damn pissed at the murder of my laptop was pleased as punch. I’m sad to say there wasn’t even much of an internal struggle. I plugged it in to charge straight away.

When it had enough juice to turn on, I prepared myself to berate it into connecting to the wifi network at Bobby’s house only to discover that the laptop was all too keen to do the hard yards for me. I just had to type in the password key, and I was set. Nothing had ever been so simple in my life. I used the webcam of my new computer to take a photo of my old computer, and sent it to my Spanish teacher with a short apology, and the explanation that my laptop had been the sad victim of a bar fight. Since she got us to hand up assignments on Wednesdays in order to give us two days of grace before it absolutely had to be in on the Friday, I was pretty sure I could still make it.

So that was where my morning went, spent on homework because I am such a huge nerd. Dean could be proud that I was living up to his expectations, and Bobby was just happy that I wasn’t touching his creaky old Pentium. Eventually I had to break for lunch, and some thought.

Having used the laptop for several hours, I was pretty certain it wasn’t rigged to be a weapon of some kind. And given that the Other could have just shrugged off the destruction of my property without doing a thing to remedy it… Did this mean that he didn’t want to kill me? On the one hand, of the four of us he’d only attacked Ava. On the other hand, Chuck had experienced a premonition of my murder at the hands of an Other. Though he had admitted that it was the vague intention type of vision, his premonitions hadn’t been wrong yet.

But then, the Other had told me his name. A piece of information that was supposed to be so sacred to the Others had been handed to me. As thanks? As a sign of trust? He’d said that he was in my debt, but what did that mean? I decided that my only recourse was to consult an expert, and went back to my schoolwork in order to kill some time.

I like to do a roast on Wednesdays – I have plenty of time to do the vegetables or run down to the shops, and there’s meat for sandwiches for the rest of the week. Also, it’s a nice change from fried-whatever, which makes up an unfortunately large portion of my diet. I drove into town and grabbed a leg of lamb, some mint sauce, and some fetta to go with the potatoes. We had fresh rosemary in the garden, and potato and pumpkin in the pantry. After a long moment of deliberation, I sent Dean a text inviting him to dinner. I figured he’d end up eating about half the roast anyway – he may was well get it fresh rather than as leftovers.

And so, for the second week in a row I was dealing with potatoes while cradling the phone to my ear with my shoulder, waiting for a call to go through.

“Good evening caller, you’re on the air,” Pam said cheerfully.

“Hi,” I replied. “Listen, what’s the significance when an Other tells someone their name? Like, their real name?”

There was a short pause at the end of the line. “It’s pretty significant,” Foxy said at last.

“To put that into context,” Pam added, her voice an amused purr, “I’ve been working with Foxy for a year, and I still don’t know his real name.”

“You’ve never asked,” Foxy protested.

“Okay,” Richie chimed in. “What’s your real name?”

“I’m not telling _you_. Ugh, damn curious humans. Hey! You’re the caller from last week, right? Toast man.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That’s me.”

“Sounds like the toast went down well.”

“He also said that he was in my debt.”

There was another pause, and Foxy made a ‘hmm’ sound. “Must be good toast.”

“Uh-oh,” Pam said in her warm voice. “You’ve got him interested now.”

When Foxy spoke again, his voice was low and happily curious. “Why exactly is he in your debt?”

I paused, trying to figure out how much to tell. “He was in a fight,” I said eventually. “I helped him.”

“You rescued an Other?” Richie asked, sounding mildly impressed.

“Not really,” I replied honestly. “I was more of a distraction, I think.”

“Hmm,” Foxy said again. “Well, it’s certainly an honour. We believe that, in a nutshell, our names are the most important thing about us, so they’re the part of ourselves that we protect most fiercely.”

“So knowing an Other’s name is a sign of trust?” Pam asked.

“Being told is,” Foxy clarified. “If you tell anyone else this Other’s name, that’s a big no-no in terms of etiquette. Being in an Other’s debt, that’s a ‘get out of jail free’ card you’ll want to hang on to.”

“Oh,” Richie said. “This sounds good.”

“The debt is of equal size to the one that is repaid. So, if you save a life, they save your life. If you collect their mail while they’re on vacation, they’ll do the same for you. It’s proportional.”

“Can you get a big debt paid off with several smaller ones?” Richie asked.

“Sure. In fact, they usually are. No expiry date, aside from yours.”

“What happens if an Other dies before their debt is repaid?” I asked.

“Ugh, that gets tricky. It used to be that their apprentice would have to pay off the debt.”

“You guys get apprentices?”

“It’s fallen out of favour of late. You can ask the debt to be paid by a family member, but you have to actually find one of those rather than waiting for the apprentice to turn up on your doorstep.”

“Can humans be in an Other’s debt?” Pam asked. “If I get pulled out of a burning car or something, will I have to return the favour?”

“No,” Foxy replied. “I mean, it would be the nice thing to do. But by our standards humans are pretty unreliable. There’s not a lot of point in expecting anything in return.”

“Thanks,” Richie said dryly.

“Hey, did you ever pay me back for that Twix I let you have?”

“It was half a Twix!”

“Then it should be twice as easy to pay back,” Foxy snapped.

“So,” I asked over their bickering, which meant that I was probably talking to Pam, “what do I do now?”

There was a muffled sound, and a muffled ‘Hey!’ that came from a distance from the microphone. Pam tended to control her boys with tough love, and the thought of her smacking an Other upside the head made me smile despite my confusion.

“Well,” Foxy said at last. “You can do whatever you want. Call him by his name if you like, but not in public. Telling people his name could even cancel out the debt, but it would not endear you to us in any great way.”

“You guys are pretty protective of one another, huh?”

“Yeah. We’re like the most aggressive brothers and sisters ever.”

“You gonna run out and make sure Toast Man is treating your baby bro right?” Richie asked.

“You can’t do much more right than keeping someone from getting their ass kicked,” Foxy replied. “Although if you could get your own kicked in the near future, that’d be great. Nothing like repaying a debt nice and early.”

“I’ll do my best,” I replied dryly, and after a neat ‘thank you’ from Pam, I was hanging the phone up and back to crumbling fetta over roast potatoes.

I wondered if I could ask him to stop killing people as repayment for helping him. I decided it was unlikely – four lives (a lot more than that, really) in exchange for one wasn’t really a fair trade. I wondered if Chuck had seen last night’s fight in his visions. He said that Others didn’t register, were they just empty spots in his visions? Despite his reluctance, Chuck was going to have to get a handle on his gift.

Dean arrived before I could plot much further than that, still stinky from his day out in the sun (painting over graffiti today, with a side of pruning bushes by the hospital). “Sheriff’s getting pretty pissed,” he said by way of greeting. “And everyone’s favourite detective is in an even _better_ mood.”

“Why?”

“They can’t get to a witness.”

I frowned. As far as I knew, Ava was the only one who had ever seen an attack, and she’d had the seat of honour. Then I realised that I too had seen the same execution, last night behind the bar. I sat down suddenly in one of the old kitchen chairs. “I didn’t know there were any others,” I said weakly.

“A dude turned up in a hospital last night, with a hole in his neck.”

“There’s been another murder?”

“Nope,” Dean replied. “This guy was alive and kicking. Got his holes stitched up, was shoved in a bed for the night, doped up to his eyeballs. This morning, he was gone without a trace. Staff never got his name. He came in alone, and wasn’t exactly chatty. Night nurse said a doctor came in around three am with two paramedics and transferred him to his local hospital, but the hospital on the paperwork doesn’t exist, there’s no patient name, and the police in that area have no missing persons that fit the description.” Dean was positively gleeful as he told me all of this. There was nothing he liked better than some good, mystery-laden town gossip. “Hey, is that roast done yet?” Well, almost nothing.

“Another few minutes,” I replied, standing up again to get the condiments prepared. “How do you know all this?”

“Deputy Hottie was getting details from Heather Fuller while I was tending to the gardens. Heather was pretty distressed by it all, having lost a patient and all that. So, it was only right for me to pull her to one side and help comfort her.”

I rolled my eyes. It was only natural, he meant, for Dean to get a pretty girl snuggled up to his side while she poured out her problems. I wondered what Cassie would think when she found out. I knew Dean hadn’t done anything more than give a girl a manly shoulder to cry on, but Dean had a way of making every girl he came across feel special, and his girlfriends often objected to that part of his nature.

“Damn horndog,” Bobby muttered as he ambled into his kitchen, and I figured that pretty much summed up my position on the matter, too. Dean gave Bobby his best heart-breaker smile, and batted his eyelashes. “That damn roast ready yet?” Bobby asked, just before the oven timer went off.

There was a clatter of plates and serving dishes, and then the sounds of cutlery clinking against plates and mouths chewing. Dean was grumbling about the weird things that I do to potatoes in his mind, but Bobby liked the tang of fetta and the way it got soft without exactly melting. Neither man is prone to offering compliments or constructive criticism when it came to food, so I figured it wasn’t exactly wrong for me to go searching for some feedback. Then Bobby thought that I was almost as good a cook as Karen had been, and I couldn’t hide my proud smile.

Dean and Bobby both noticed, and after a moment of scrambled thinking, I felt them both try to blank their minds, and I had to snort a laugh.

“If it helps,” I said, my voice sounding oddly loud in the kitchen compared to the mumble of brainwaves that had preceded it, “you’re both kind of hard to read.”

Dean and Bobby shared a look, and Dean shifted his shoulders as if seeking the right posture for this conversation. “So how exactly does this brain thing of yours work, anyway?” he asked, aiming for casual and coming off a little abrasive.

I shrugged, and leaned back in my chair. “I don’t know how it works,” I said honestly. “I just do it.”

“But is it like listening to a radio or something?”

“Sometimes. Not everyone thinks the same way though. Like, remember how Dad used to talk to himself when he had too many things to do? His thoughts were like that, trailing off and tangling and stuff.” It had been a frustrating contrast for me as a teenager, since Dad had always been very clipped and straightforward on the outside, but a tangle of ideas and emotions on the inside.

“Bobby thinks in lists, and then there’s like an intention. ‘Bills, ugh’, ‘dogs, now’, ‘book, want’. That kind of thing.” Bobby’s eyebrows were a little raised and he looked interested. I guess living inside your head doesn’t mean you necessarily know how it works.

“Dean, you’re…” I frowned, looking for words. “Feelings, mainly. Like when you’re irritated, or angry, or happy, it’s like this big wave coming out of your head and any thoughts are just little bubbles carried on it.” Bobby was nodding at that, but Dean was unimpressed. He liked to think that people only saw what he let them, and the idea that I could read his emotions so clearly unsettled him.

“Usually, I just pick up streams of consciousness,” I continued. “Whatever people are thinking, and it all fades in and out and gets tangled up, and I don’t always know who’s thinking what. Some people think with words, some with pictures. Usually it just hits me, you know? And I have to move around it. If I ever want to tune in to someone specific, I have to work at it. You guys, and Dad and Karen, you were always the easiest. I guess I got used to your brains early on.”

Bobby nodded, as if that made sense. Dean still wasn’t comfortable with me being in his head. I didn’t have to read his thoughts to know that, it was all in his posture – angled away from me with his elbow closest to Bobby propped forwards by his plate, and his other arm propped along the edge of the table, braced across his chest. I sighed. I could understand wanting your privacy, even expecting it in your own head, but this wasn’t something I was good at controlling. It wasn’t something I could help, most of the time.

“Is there anyone you can’t read?” Bobby asked, turning his eyes back to his half-eaten dinner and picking up his knife again.

“Others,” I replied instantly. “And…” I trailed off, uncertain.

“And?” Dean prompted.

“And people like me, they’re really hard,” I said at last.

I had been doing my best to stay out of their heads during this conversation, but it was certainly tempting now to dip in and reorient myself. Dean was still projecting emotion, but he was aware of it now, and his feelings were corrected by abrupt changes, contractions as he tried to lock them away, and I wanted to tell him off for trying because the struggle was sending some awfully distracting signals.

Dean wasn’t exceptionally fond of the idea of there being more people like me. He was still struggling to accept that _I_ was a person like me. I wondered idly how many times I’d have to tell him that I could read minds, that I wasn’t alone in my abilities.

“It’s hard to get a clear reading because we respond to one another without meaning to,” I explained. “And it gets stronger the more aware of it we are. If one of us is sad, it affects all of us.”

“Sounds rough,” Bobby said.

“Actually, it’s kind of nice.” It was nice, having that connection with someone, having other people shoulder your burdens. It was wonderful.

“So how long has this club of yours been meeting up?” Dean asked. He was angry for some reason, and hiding it poorly. He had the same flat voice when he was mad that Dad had, and I’ve always wondered if that was a conscious decision on Dean’s part.

“Since Ava got stabbed,” I replied, keeping my voice light and honest.

“Seriously?” There was disbelief in Dean’s voice, like he was about to catch me out on a lie.

“Yeah, seriously,” I replied, not doing anything to hide the annoyance in my own voice.

“You’ve been living around other- other people like you for however long, and you never hung out before now? Never thought to meet up and bond over being freaks?”

“It’s not like we’ve all got signs painted above our heads,” I snapped. “It’s not like everyone goes around thinking about some special abilities they may have _all the time_.”

“And you don’t think Sam might have been a little happier,” Bobby cut in sharply, “knowing there were other people out there who could help him through this stuff?” Dean paused then, and I sent Bobby a grateful look. “This is all a lot to take in,” Bobby said calmly, “but that ain’t Sam’s fault so you can stop being uppity about it right now.”

Dean shifted his shoulders, putting me in mind of a bird ruffling its feathers, before settling down again. “Alright, I get it,” he said a little sullenly. After a pointed look from Bobby he added, “Sorry Sam.”

“It’s not your fault,” I said, try to sound as charitable as possible. “You were probably just born that way.” Dean pulled a face at me, and while there was still some tension between us, he was making a conscious effort now to calm himself down.

“So, your life still in danger or what?” he finally asked, turning back to his dinner. This was how the men in our family worked. Any shocking news could be discussed like it was the weather so long as there was meat on the table to keep the hands busy.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I think I’ll probably find out at work tomorrow.”

Bobby looked up from scraping up the last of the gravy with his fork. “Why tomorrow?”

Because tomorrow was Thursday, and the Other always came into The Roadhouse on Thursdays. Because he was in debt to me, and had promised me answers. Because he had given me a gift when he could have killed me.

“With any luck,” I said with a small smile, “I get to call in a favour.”

~*~

Of course, the next day the Other broke his pattern. I saw neither hide nor hair of him. I was torn between being incredibly angry and incredibly worried. I was angry because I thought that the logical thing to do (if you were a member of a race who frowned on killing, and you had been spotted doing so) would be to skip out of town and never return. Worried, because I was pretty certain that wasn’t the reason for his absence.

I thought it was far more likely that his actions had landed him in deep, deep trouble.


	8. Chapter 8

I was sent home from work at five-thirty on Friday. I’d stayed back to help ease Lisa into the dinner shift, something she didn’t need at all since she worked the long shift on Saturdays. I was hoping that the Other, that Castiel would turn up. He didn’t, and Ellen threatened to throw me out if I didn’t go home. His absence had me wound up tighter than a drum, and I had annoyed just about everyone during my shift.

I was keen to work off some of my jitters, so I as soon as I got home I swapped my boots for a pair of running shoes and took off down Flaherty, away from town. I ran past our neighbour’s property, and then further south, passing several small farms, small crops of vegetables and a few fruit orchards, with the odd pet sheep or cow dotting the countryside. Even though it was early evening, it was still bright, and the cooling air felt nice against my sweaty skin. I jogged along the boundary of a section of corn. Most fields measure a mile by a mile, with thin little service roads dividing them. I ended up at a section of the small woods that run along one section of the Salvage yard, and jogged through the uneven ground as my cool down.

I was sweaty and dusty when I turned in the front gate, and I pulled my shirt off as soon as the house was in sight and used it to mop sweat out of my eyes. As a result, I didn’t see the figure sitting on the front steps until I almost stepped on him. The Other, Castiel, wearing the same suit and overcoat that I had always seen him in, perched calmly on the edge of the porch with his fingers laced around one knee. He looked up at me with an unreadable face, his eyes squinting against the sun behind me.

I stared down at him. The cut across his nose was healed like it had never been there. His clothes were clean, though he looked a little dishevelled as always. He appeared to be mildly irritated, but not hunted or in mortal peril. Just hours earlier I had thought that if I ever saw him again, I would feel nothing but relieved. Now that he was in front of me, I felt angry. Tired, and sweaty, and angry.

We stared at each other for a long moment. He had said that he would come to me, give me answers. Well, his posture seemed to be saying, you’d better get on with it. “I suppose I should let you in,” I said, my voice clipped.

“You are under no obligation to,” he said in a remote, cool voice, as if he were bored of me and the warm wooden porch he had been waiting on. Then his gaze sharpened, and the hairs on my arms began to prickle. “Though, if I wanted to enter, there is no way you could stop me.” Right, I thought, message received loud and clear. “You could,” he continued, “cast me out, and I would be unable to re-enter.”

“I guess that’s handy,” I said. I could see why that piece of information had been kept secret.

“If you truly wished to be rid of me, you could cast me from your sight and reject me from your breast,” he added, his gaze searing me now and his oddly-formal words seemed to have a physical force as they fell from his lips. “You would never see or hear me again.”

A thick tension hung between us, and I licked my lips nervously. “Would you still be there?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said seriously. “But I would be unable to reach you. You would appear like a ghost to me.” I thought of the unresting soul Ava had conjured in her bedroom, and shivered.

I lifted my chin, determined not to be spooked by these words whose meanings I only half understood. “What if I changed my mind?”

“Minds are easy to change,” he said seriously. “Hearts are not.”

Part of me wanted to laugh at his drama, at this creature who barely passed as human at times lecturing me on hearts and intentions. But a larger part recognised that he was imparting secrets about his race and culture that possibly no other human knew. With each exchange, he was giving me more and more power over him. While he had a clumsy grasp of human interactions and graces, he was equipping me with a similar artillery of Otherly conventions.

I took a deep breath, and as I tried to get my head on straight I noticed that once again I’d been partly seduced by his nearness, by the calm that saturated parts of me even when the air between us was tense. We would never be equally matched, I realised.

“Why are Others trying to kill the others?” I asked, then kicked myself at my clumsy phrasing. “People like me,” I clarified.

He didn’t have the ticks and twitches that a human had; he stared at me without blinking as he composed his answer. He was still sitting on the wooden steps of Bobby’s front porch, and I stayed standing, unwilling to give up what little advantage my height gave me. I wished he’d look down at his hands, give me some signal to interpret. Being unable to read his mind, I was cut off from his intentions and floundering.

Then he tilted his head at me, his eyes a beautiful blue that caught the light of the clear sky behind me, his hair a tousled dark mess with highlights of hazelnut where the sun caught it. Despite the stubble along his jaw and his rumpled clothes, he looked impossibly beautiful. “You’re an abomination,” he said, as if this were some statement about my clothes or my occupation. “You, and your kin.”

I stared down at him for a long moment, my body completely still as his words finally penetrated. “What?” I asked, articulately. “Because I can read minds? Because Andy can-?”

“Because you straddle the boundary between the natural and the supernatural,” he said, cutting me off. His eyes narrowed slightly, giving him the appearance of glaring up at me, and I could only look down at him in perplexed frustration. Eventually, he seemed to sigh.

“Others are separate from humans.” Understatement, I thought. “As species we are incompatible.” He opened his mouth to continue, but my mind had already connected the dots. He meant that they couldn’t breed. But if I ‘straddled the boundary’…

“I’m, what, some Other’s lovechild?”

“In a manner of speaking,” the Other confirmed grudgingly. He shifted on the porch, setting his feet further apart in the dust that made up most of Bobby’s front yard. “One of my kind made entreaties to humans. He told them that he wished to have children, that – if they allowed his essence to mature within them – he could answer their wish for a child.”

I remembered a hazy scene from my youth. My mother’s arms around me, her voice in my ear telling me that I was a miracle. She’d been told that she wouldn’t be able to have children after Dean, but she’d proven them wrong. With a little help, she’d shown them…

“I’m half-Other?”

Castiel gave me a look as if I had said something ridiculous and should be ashamed. “You are the child of your parents,” he said. “But you have been touched.” Way to make it sound creepy. Thanks. “Your benefactor has gifted you, and all of the other children he aided into this world, with his talents.”

It had been rumoured that Others possessed abilities beyond our own. They were strong and fast. I had seen Castiel in ways that could never be mistaken for human. They healed quickly, their voices could hurt human ears… Apparently, they could read minds. They could force their will on people, talk to the dead, see the future. All of these gifts that could be of so much benefit in the hands of those who knew how to use them. Gifts that had been kept secret until they had been handed down to a handful of weak and miserable humans. Gifts that would remain secret, because those humans would be eradicated. Suddenly, I was angry all over again.

“And you’re killing us all?” I demanded. “Slaughtering us because someone dared to share all of your secret talents with us lowly apes? Butchering us in the night to keep these fucking gifts of yours that none of us asked for secret?” I had my finger shoved in his face now, and his eyes were narrowing. “Is that why you couldn’t kill Ava? You were scared of making a ghost who could talk to ghosts?”

Then suddenly he was on his feet, into my space so quickly that I was forced back a few steps by his presence. His anger was like a physical thing, coiling around me and holding me in place. “I am a soldier,” he spat, “ _not_ an assassin.” He sucked in a long, tense breath through his nose, and held it for a long moment. Then he let it out in one long, steady stream, and turned his face away.

“And how many of us did it take for you to work that out?” I asked, not willing to back down. In fact, I stepped forwards and shoved at his shoulders. He rocked back on his heels and looked mildly surprised at the contact. I kept yelling at him. “How many of us spent their last moments scared and in agony before you decided your talents lay elsewhere?”

“Their deaths weren’t cruel,” he said sharply, as if I had no right insinuating that being stabbed through the neck was a horrible way to die.

I leaned into his space then, forcing him back a pace. “Why? Was it a _humane_ slaughter? Did you tell them they were going to a nice farm in the country where they could run free?” I doubt he understood the reference, but the meaning of it certainly registered with him. “How can you murder someone without being cruel?” I yelled in his face.

His hand flew up, faster than I could see, and he pressed two fingers to my forehead.

 _I had the white tape of the finish line still tangled in my arms, slowing awkwardly to a jog several feet past the finish line. Sweat was in my eyes. I ached, could feel the sunburn on my face. And then arms wrapped around me. The leather and oil smell of my father. I was as tall as he was, fifteen and ready to stop growing. I was so tired that I couldn’t feel his thoughts, not clearly, not even with the skin of his forearm hot against the back of my neck and pressure of his embrace. His beard scratched my forehead as he leaned up to kiss me, a rare display of affection, and I staggered, my legs giving out after the marathon._

 _We parted just long enough for my coach to pin a ribbon to the front of my shirt. Blue, with cheap gold lettering printed on it. I glimpsed the words ‘First Place’ before my father’s arms were around me again, his temple pressed to mine and his pride flowed over me like the most refreshing water, his belief that I could do anything._

 _“Sam,” he said in that rough voice of his that I missed so much, the one that meant he was so caught up in things that he was losing himself. “I’m so proud of you.”_

Then I blinked, and the scene changed. Castiel before me instead of my father, his hand lowering from my face. I blinked again, trying to clear the water from my eyes, dizzy because my brain thought that my body should be exhausted when it wasn’t, thought I was fifteen again. I stumbled a little, and he reached out to steady me.

I stared at him in wonderment. If I had been asked to tell you my happiest memory I would have sworn that there was no moment in my life that was perfect. But that scene I had just witnessed, that memory of a rare moment of success in my life, of my father loving me without confusion or contention. It most certainly fit the bill.

With Castiel’s hands on me, I remembered the ghost I had witnessed Ava communicating with, it’s confused last moments and it’s feeling of peace. I recalled Ava’s memory of the night she had been attacked, hands reaching towards her face and halting, unable to find their place.

I remembered my dad falling to the ground in a wide, green park, the baseball he’d been in the process of throwing to me rolling away. The suddenness of his death, how unprepared for it any of us had been. The repeated consolation, _at least he’d died happy._

I blinked again, scrubbing at my face. Sweat and tears and a melting pot of emotions. Castiel stared up at me, his face stubborn and a little defiant. I was shirtless, my calves were gritty with dust, and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed until my brain had digested all of this.

“I need a shower,” I said, and pushed past him into the house.

I had free reign of the upstairs bathroom – Bobby used the ensuite he’d added when Karen had started getting sick. Jo tended to give me her half-used bottles of shampoo and body wash, always trying to find something that suited her perfectly. Dean, of course, delighted in teasing me about my orchid soap and guava conditioner. But I didn’t think of any of these people as I stepped under the spray which alternated between being a little too cold and just too hot.

I let the water rinse me of the smells of the day, the beer and fried foods of the bar, the dust and pollen of spring in South Dakota, the animal sweetness that the Other carried in the folds of that stupid tan coat. I turned the taps off, wrapped a towel around my waist, and stepped into the cool air of the hall. My plans of getting dressed and heading back down stairs to get more answers out of the Other were put on hold by his presence in my bedroom.

He sat at my desk, straddling my blue office chair. He had one elbow propped on the back of the chair, raising a level hand to his face. There was a brown mouse sitting in his palm, and when I walked into my room both Other and rodent turned to look at me. I had the perplexing feeling that I was interrupting something. My hand tightened on the towel.

“It’s kind of rude to come into someone’s room uninvited,” I said, edging towards my wardrobe.

“I apologise,” he said, not sounding especially chastised. He turned to one side, and lowered his hand to the floor. After a moment, the mouse vacated his palm and scuttled behind the old oil heater that kept me from freezing in the winter months.

“We’ve been trying to catch him for a week,” I said. I was a little put out that the mouse was still on the loose, that it could have been removed from our house so painlessly. Castiel gave me a sharp look, and I remembered Foxy talking about the connection Others had with animals. “We’re not going to kill it,” I said. “Just relocate it.” His face softened a little, and I closed the distance to my closet, pulling the door open and grabbing a t-shirt and track pants out, dumping them on my bed.

He watched me, his dark blue eyes following my movements, and I felt embarrassed at my near-nakedness. I have a runner’s build, lean and a little lanky. As a physical specimen, Dean is far more impressive (though, despite his assertions that his body is the product of good, honest labour, I know he works out like a motherfucker). The last time someone had paid so much attention to me when I had my shirt off had been when I’d had the flu and my doctor had moved his stethoscope all over my chest, trying to figure out how deep into my lungs the infection had gotten. Not even Jess had gotten my shirt off, though she’d run her hands under it on occasion.

His eyes shifted to trail down my chest, the muscles of my side as I bent to grab some underwear out of the drawer. There was nothing lecherous in his gaze, but it lacked his usual remoteness. I could feel colour rushing to my cheeks, and I bit my lip to keep from saying something stupid. I scooped my clothes up and stepped back out into the hall, hurriedly pulling clothes on out of his sight. Did Others have x-ray vision? I told myself not to be silly. Even if they did, he could have looked under my clothes any time, right? Strangely enough, that thought didn’t exactly settle me…

“It is cruel,” I said as I strode back into my room, returning us to our earlier topic of conversation. “Killing someone for what they are. Mouse or telepath, it’s always cruel.” He looked away then, and I could see guilt in his muted expression. “What made you stop?” I asked.

He continued staring at the ground off to one side. I wondered if maybe I had reached my limit, if maybe he had told me enough to pay off his debt to me. Given the long pause and the reluctance in his posture, I felt as if I had finally grasped the edges of a secret that he was unwilling to divulge. When he spoke, his voice was low and delicate.

“You were so kind.”

I was stunned. Such a simple answer, but undoubtedly a true one. My brain was still a little clumsy after his… whatever he’d done. Was that his gift alone, or one that all Others had? What were his past experiences with humans if someone offering him food and conversation had touched him so? He looked strangely shy and oddly casual, slouched in my chair. His eyes were still turned away from me in… embarrassment? Shame?

“Why weren’t you at the bar last night?” I asked, giving voice to a concern that should have been bottom of my list. I guess I wanted to give him an easy question while he composed himself.

“I had to travel to my kin,” he said. “In killing for you, I have betrayed my kind. I will be judged.” He paused then, turning to look at me. “Did my absence affect you?” His voice was curious, and I knew he was asking a deeper question. I swallowed thickly, and didn’t answer.

“This judging…” I started instead, then paused. “I’ve heard that killing an Other is unforgivable.”

Castiel smiled then, the slightest curve of lips, a grim amusement. “Sachiel is unlikely to forgive me,” he said, and I knew then that was the name of the man he had killed.

“But, will you..?” I couldn’t bring myself to ask if he would be killed in, what? Retribution? Repayment?

His face softened a little, the small smile fell from his lips. For a moment he looked at peace. “That is dependent on a lot of things,” he said.

“When is the trial, or whatever?”

“Soon.”

I turned that over in my head. “Should I be there?” I asked. “I’m kind of all caught up in this anyway.”

He regarded me for a long moment and his gaze turned penetrating. He looked at me like he was weighing me up, like he was always pleasantly surprised by what he saw in me. “I am not sure if it would be wise to make you obvious to my kin. But then, your presence is already known to us.” He shrugged, a small movement of his shoulders, and that seemed to be his final statement on the matter.

“Come to Bobby’s birthday this Sunday,” I said suddenly, surprising myself with my invitation. “I need to think about all this,” I explained. “And I know I’ll have more questions to ask you.”

He nodded. “This Sunday,” he repeated. Then he unfolded himself from my chair with an odd grace for such an awkward creature. He looked me up and down for one long, heated moment, and then casually stepped past me and out into the hall. The air in my room was colder without him to distract me, and I realised that the sun was setting. I paused then, wondering if I should retract my invitation. But when I stepped into the hall myself, my mouth half-open, he was already gone.

~*~

Saturday had been a day that lasted too long, by my tastes. A full day at the bar on a restless night before, coming up with more and more questions, becoming less and less satisfied with the answers I received. I called Mr Fox’s radio show on my break, using the payphone in the hall and punching the number in before I could think too much about what I was doing. Ash stuck his head out of the kitchen while I was on hold, requiring an audience for his rant about some show about teenage witches that wasn’t living up to his expectations. I almost missed Pam’s voice in my ear, saying “Caller, you’re on the air.”

I hadn’t known exactly what I wanted to ask. Whether every Other knew about the motivation behind the murders that had started on the East coast and had been wending their way slowly West. Why an Other needed human foetuses to have children of his own. “Caller?” Pam prompted.

I thought of my Other, of Castiel, and his sapphire blue eyes, the way he looked at me. “How can you tell,” I asked slowly, my mouth dry, “if an Other likes you?” I tried to melt into the wooden panelling as I forced myself to add, “You know, like-likes?”

There was a long pause, and I squeezed my eyes closed. “You,” Foxy said at last, his voice rich and teasing, “have just become my favourite caller.” I hung the phone up in embarrassment. Then lifted it off the hook, and slammed it down a few extra times for good measure.

“You break it, you bought it,” Ellen said dryly and she brushed past me on the way to her office.

“And another thing,” Ash called from the kitchen, his spatula waving in the air as he wound himself up again. “If _you_ got turned invisible for a day, why the hell wouldn’t you milk it for all that it’s worth? Rob a bank, steal porn, go skinny dipping!”

“Not hide in the change-rooms?” Jo asked, stepping around me and heading out towards the bar proper.

“To watch teenagers change?” Ash asked. “Ew. Now, if they happened to be the change rooms at the Lady Programmers of the US annual squash tournament and luncheon…”

“No naked geeks in my bar!” Ellen called from her office. I took a deep breath, set my mind on track, and got back to work.

My shift was then followed by another restless night, this time accompanied by aching feet and a general dissatisfaction with everything from the menu for the following day to the length of my hair. I got up at 2am to download the radio show I’d missed, but couldn’t quite bring myself to listen to it. I hated how indecisive I was. I hated my luck, that the first guy to have turned my head since I was in high school and Trent Lockwood had tackled me under the sprinklers also happened to have been sent to kill me. I hated that thinking about Castiel, about his face and his presence and the way he looked at me, could make me so hard and aching.

I fisted my cock, sprawled out on the rough quilt covering my bed, the night air prickling my skin. No slow build, no elaborate fantasy. Just lust and frustration. I came hard and incoherent, completely lacking in dignity. And then, thankfully, I slept.

~*~

I do almost all of the cooking, the shopping, that kind of thing. If I can get my hands on a bill before Bobby, I pay it. He won’t accept any rent, thinking that family shouldn’t pay family. In contrast, I feel bad living off Bobby’s small income simply because we’re not blood-relatives. He’s got no obligation to look after me, so I guess I don’t always understand why he does. We’re that snarled and complicated kind of classification – too close and too liable to get short with one another to count as just friends. There were some times just after Dad died when I’d wake up and hear Bobby’s voice, and think it was my dad mumbling down in the living room. There were times, too, when Bobby looked on me and Dean with the fierce protectiveness of a father.

There were even a few times growing up, when Dad and Dean were yelling the roof down, or when he and I would be sulking around one another with that tight atmosphere, and Bobby would start to think _‘If I were raising those boys…’_ He always stomped down on that train of thought, though. I remember the barbecue we had after Dean graduated from high school, the easy way Dean had accepted congratulations from people who were sure he would end up a dropout, Dad’s proud smile sitting easily on his face, and Bobby had thought, _‘Those boys are turning out just right’_. I think back to that moment a lot, that fond confidence he’d had that Dean and I could do anything we set our minds to.

So, despite not being blood, Bobby is definitely family. And I have so little family left that I do my best to spoil them, I guess. I have enough regrets about not knowing my mother well enough, about not getting along better with Dad. (Of course, now I had this whole new family opening up to me, but I firmly pushed that aside for one day.) Bobby’s birthday meant meat cooked on the barbecue, potato salad and pasta salad, food that we would live off for the next week. Beer and friends, pie (a peach cobbler this time) and ice cream. Dogs off their chains for the day, begging scraps and getting their bellies rubbed, acting like the pets Bobby tells himself they’re not.

I spent the morning working on the sides – boiling eggs and potatoes for cold salads, cutting up the cold meat and organising mustards and relishes, cutting up carrot and celery into sticks that only I would eat. Dean came around before midday to set the barbecue up, cleaning it and loading it with coals. We both washed different kinds of dirt off our hands before having a quick lunch of cheese sandwiches and an apple each. Bobby was out in his workshop, doing his best to ignore the preparations within his own house.

The Roadhouse would be closing early so half the staff could come, and Cassie dropped around early afternoon to wind her arms around Dean’s waist and tell him off for building a fire in the metal bin kept for such purposes wrong. She then proceeded to pull out his sticks and logs and start all over again.

“I’m a man,” Dean protested. “I have an instinct for making fire.”

“I was a Girl Guide,” Cassie replied easily. “I actually have some experience in the area.”

I dug folding lawn chairs out of the garage, and Cassie helped me wipe them down while Dean set up a folding table. Cassie asked if we had a tablecloth to spread over it, and I gave Dean a pointed look. He’d vetoed the same suggestion an hour before.

“Yeah yeah, can the bitchface,” he said. “I’ll go dig one up.”

“Do you even know where the linen closet is?” I asked him.

“We have a linen closet?” Bobby asked, wiping his hands on a rag. I rolled my eyes, and Cassie laughed that easy laugh of hers.

Ellen and Jo arrived conveniently after all of the heavy work was done, walking around the back of the house with comfortable familiarity. Ellen carried a case of beer in her arms, and Jo followed with a pan of potato bake covered in foil. She was wearing a pair of work boots that laced up her ankles, jeans that were cut off just above her knees, and a flannelette shirt with a plaid pattern in blues and white.

“Ash said he’ll be along ‘shortly’,” she said. “He needs to gank some noobs.”

“That boy’s scared of sunlight,” Ellen said dryly, setting the case down beside a chest of ice, and pulling Dean’s slightly inferior contribution to the drinks supply out in favour of chilling her own.

Dean made a face at her when he came out, arms laden with a gingham tablecloth. Cassie helped him spread it over the table, and Jo rushed forward to give her potato bake the place of honour in the middle. Then bodies bustled about, transferring food from the scarred table inside to the rough one outside. Ellen uncapped bottles of beer with easy motions of her wrist, passing them out to all who passed her by. She paused in transferring one to me though, asking to see some ID.

I’m tall, but I look young for my age. My hair needed cutting, and Ellen sometimes teased me, saying I looked too shy to work in a bar. Though I’d been employed at The Roadhouse for several years, every now and then someone still joked that Ellen needed to be carding her employees, not the patrons. I pulled a face at her, and snatched the beer from her hand.

“Manners, Sammy,” Dean called from by the house. “Or you’ll be sent to the naughty corner!”

“Compared to you,” I called back, “I’ll always be a saint.”

“You got no sense of adventure,” Dean replied with a dismissive wave of his hand, and then stepped back inside. His departure revealed an awkward shape by the side of the house. Castiel. I licked my lips, and tried to push my bangs out of my face, a largely futile effort, before walking over to him.

“Hi,” I said.

He finished looking around the yard, taking stock of the people, and then turned his gaze onto me. After some thought, he said “Hi,” back. Then he lifted his hand, showing me an envelope. It was dark pink, and had ‘Hallmark’ stamped on it. “I was told it was customary to bring a gift.”

I winced. Bobby wasn’t good at accepting gifts. I took the envelope from the Other, and carefully lifted the flap. There was a folded piece of paper inside, and I pulled it out. There was a symbol drawn on it in some kind of brown paint or something.

“What is it?” I asked.

“It is a mark of familiarity,” he said almost absently, having returned his gaze to the activity in the yard. “It will mark him as kin to one who is owed a debt.” He looked back at me, saw that I still didn’t quite get the concept. “It is a kind of protection,” he explained. “It confers a blessing.”

“Oh,” I said. “Cool. Um, what do we do with it?”

“Usually they are painted above the doors of homesteads in the blood of a white fowl,” he said. He had such an oddly casual way of talking about these things, as if we were discussing the weather. “Or this notice could be carried about his person.”

I looked down at the paper again, taking note of the texture of what I had assumed was paint. “Is this blood?” I finally asked.

“Yes,” Castiel replied, almost absently. Then he noticed what must have been a look of extreme distaste on my face and added, “It’s mine.”

I let that information settle into my brain for a moment, and then tucked the paper back into its envelope and secured the flap again. “Thank you,” I said. “That’s very… thoughtful. I’ll just go give it to him.”

I hurried over to Bobby, who was standing by the barbecue with a pair of tongs in his hand. The Other followed me, and I pasted a smile on my face. “Bobby,” I said, “this is a friend of mine. He brought you a present. I’ll explain it to you _later_.”

Bobby looked at me, the Other standing just behind me and to one side, and the bright pink envelope in his hand. He took it without any great fuss and shoved it into the back pocket of his jeans. “Thanks,” he said gruffly. “You got a name?”

Everyone went quiet. Everyone, except Bobby, was up to date on Otherly-etiquette. I looked at Castiel to see how he was handling the intrusive question, only to see that he was looking at me expectantly. Okay then, the ball was in my court, apparently.

“This is Cas,” I said at last, my words sounding too-loud in the silence. “Cas, this is Bobby Singer, and I think you know everyone else.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you,” Castiel said, albeit a little stiffy. He made no move to shake Bobby’s hand, and Bobby didn’t offer.

“Likewise,” Bobby said gruffly. He gave me a meaningful look, but it was curious rather than angry. He wanted to know who this man was to me that he got invited to family events all of a sudden. I made a ‘later’ gesture, and Bobby gave me a single nod.

I pulled ‘Cas’ over to a folding chair at the furthest end of the rough semi-circle they’d been arranged in, and told him to sit by means of slight pressure to his shoulder. He sat, and immediately slumped a little in the seat, looking a little boneless.

“Sorry,” I said. “About the name thing. I hope you don’t mind the nickname.” I wasn’t sure if it was too close to his real name, or…

“When I was last among humans,” he said, watching as Bobby put sausages onto the barbecue to cook. His nose wrinkled a little in distaste at the sizzle the meat made, “it was customary for us to be named by those we took responsibility for. The custom seems to have died, but I liked it.”

“What were your previous names?” I asked curiously.

He looked thoughtful for a moment, as if struggling to remember. “Litzen. Or Dimitri. Hirsch. Tendu’a. Djinn.”

“Why don’t you use any of those names to introduce yourself?” I asked.

He gave one of those small shrugs of his. “All of my past namesakes are dead,” he said simply. “Their convenience is no longer relevant.”

I looked around the small party. Cassie and Ellen were deep in conversation, and Jo was helping Bobby behind the barbecue (and slowly taking over). Dean seemed happy to sit back and smile as Cassie and Ellen politely disagreed with one another. I saw Jo place the first steak on the hot plate, and when I looked back at the Other he had averted his eyes in open disgust. It was bemusing, that a killer and a soldier could have such an issue with meat.

“It’s dead,” I felt the need to say. “It’s not like it can feel it.”

He gave me an unimpressed look. “Death is not the end to life,” he said flatly.

“Um, it kind of is.” He looked away, out over the car yard. I guessed that particular topic was closed. Others seemed to have weird views on death and the afterlife, so I decided to just accept this and move on. “What you did to me, on Friday,” I said in a low voice. “The memory. Can all Others do that?”

“No,” he said, still looking out over the car yard. I saw that his eyes were tracking something, and when I followed his gaze I saw Harper and Ira chasing one another lazily between the cars. “It is a gift specific to my…” he paused, and his lips pursed for a moment. “There’s not a word for it anymore,” he said at last. “ _Brekhat_. In the past it has been translated as ‘sword’.”

“Is that different to the sword you use to stab people with?”

“In part,” he said. Wow, way to clarify. “The literal sword you have seen, it is mine and mine alone. As is the _breckat_. The two are tied.”

I did not understand any of this at all, but I nodded. I wondered if anyone else knew this. I wondered if linguists and historians all over the world realised just how old the Others could be. While Mr Fox had admitted to being close to fifty, despite looking about thirty years old, I got the impression that Castiel was much, _much_ older.

Dean wandered over to us then. Ellen and Cassie were clearly too deep into discussion for him to feel suitably entertained. He looked Cas up and down, and tsked.

“Dude, you really haven’t got the hang of this casual dressing thing.” The Other looked down at his clothes, even as Dean gestured at them. “It’s the weekend. No one wears a suit on the weekend. And why are you wearing a coat in shorts and t-shirt weather? I’m getting stuffy just looking at you. Come on, get up.” Dean was hauling the Other to his feet even as it occurred to me to intervene. But it was too late, Dean was pushing the coat and jacket of the Other’s shoulders, was tugging his tie loose.

“Still no good,” Dean said, eyeing the changes critically. “You look like a Mormon ready to knock on my door. C’mere.” I felt the need to avert my eyes as Dean undid the tie from the Other’s neck and stuffed it into the pocket of his slacks, as he reached for the cuffs of his white dress shirt, undid the neat buttons there and proceeded to roll his sleeves up. It was almost as if Dean were stripping him naked.

When Castiel was pushed back down into his seat, he looked almost as startled as I felt. Jo was scolding Dean from across the lawn for assaulting a guest, and Dean headed over to her, eager to rebut his position. I couldn’t stop staring at the Other. For the first time, I was seeing his naked forearms. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the bones of his wrists, the lines of wiry muscle, the bump of bone at his elbow. He had the lightest dusting of dark hair over skin that had that same pale bronze tone I had initially picked out that night mere weeks ago when he’d first walked into the bar. I glanced up at his face, and he was watching me with the faintest traces of paranoia on his face. I couldn’t help but smile at him.

“I’m owed a lot more than this for the eyeful of me you got on Friday,” I said in a low voice.

The Other smoothed his features out, imperceptible changes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, but I was certain that he was lying.

“We should grab some food,” I said. “Eating is mainly what parties are about.” The Other gave the food table a skeptical glance, but he got up out of his chair when I did, and took the plate I handed him.

There were eggs in the potato salad, and mayonnaise in the pasta salad (eggs were apparently a no-go). Cassie’s garden salad was safe of animal products, though she had drizzled a vinaigrette dressing over it, and after a brief smell Cas refused to accept any. He took a handful the carrot sticks I’d cut, and I felt small pride at the nibbles that Dean had assured me no one would eat. He spooned a small amount of potato bake onto his plate (apparently cheese was okay, and I remembered the milk he’d drunk at the bar). He took a plastic fork, and before I could lead him back to our chairs, he wandered over to speak to Bobby.

Bobby had finally given up on any semblance of pretending to have control over the cooking of meat, and had settled back with a beer, talking idly about renovations with Ellen. Cas apparently listened as he ate, though I can’t say I paid my elders the same attention. I was watching his face as he tried new things. He tried a mouthful of potato bake, and immediately looked like he regretted it. Then he painstakingly scraped all of the cheese off the slices of potato. Then he used his napkin to blot off any excess oil. Then he used the side of his knife to divide the slices of potato into neat, little portions. Then he ate each portion one by one, spearing them with a single prong of his fork so they wouldn’t crumble. I found it fascinating.

“Are you staying in town long?” Bobby asked the Other, and I gathered that he’d been at least partially appraised by Ellen.

“Not for much longer,” Castiel said, and I felt my heart sink.

Bobby looked at me, and I tried to hide my disappointment. “Just come through on business?” he inquired of the Other.

Castiel appeared to consider that choice of words. “Yes,” he said at length.

“Have you enjoyed your stay?” Ellen asked. I could feel pleasant curiosity radiating off her, her no-nonsense nature mellowed slightly by beer.

“Yes,” Castiel said without pause. “Very much so.”

“You’ll have to come back then,” Ellen said. “See all the things you’ve missed this time.” As the owner of a bar on the highway, Ellen was well prepared to recommend the must-see geological sites and areas of historical interest.

“Perhaps,” Castiel said noncommittally, and it was a little harder to keep my smile in place. I put a hand on the Other’s elbow and gently tugged him away. As we turned, Cassie stumbled into the Other. The toe of her strappy sandals had caught on a tuft of crab grass. Beer ended up down Castiel’s arm, down the leg of his black slacks.

If it had been Dean I could have snapped at him, but I could feel Cassie’s dismay at having made a mess of another guest, one whose good side she wouldn’t mind being on. She apologised profusely, grabbing a handful of napkins and trying to dry him off.

“That’s a relief,” Dean said cheerfully. “Usually I’m the one who makes an ass of myself at these things.” I could pick right out of his brain that Cassie and I gave him matching bitchfaces, and I rolled my eyes at the chuckle that drew from him.

“I’m sorry,” Cassie said to the Other, had said multiple times. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said, giving her a reassuring smile. “I’ll take him to get cleaned up. He can borrow one of my shirts. It’s fine.” The Other looked at me and then, apparently following my lead, turned to Cassie and gave her a small smile. She was a little stunned, surprised that he could smile given that she’d never seen one cross his lips before, and I took advantage of the moment and steered the Other towards the house.

We walked up the narrow staircase in silence, my hand on the small of his back. His body felt cool, like he had just put fresh clothes on and his body heat hadn’t sunk through the material yet, and I remember wondering if he were cooler than a human would be, wondering if he could feel the heat and sweat of my palms through the cotton of his dress shirt. We stood in my small bathroom, face to face, bare inches between us. I forced myself to reach past him, to grab a washcloth and wet it under the tap. I held his wrist, turning his arm this way and that to wash the beer off him, leaving behind long, wet sections of smooth skin.

“You should probably take your shirt off,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. My hand still on one wrist, he raised his other hand and I watched as he thumbed white button after white button open, his eyes never leaving my face. His shirt hung open, and I could see the pale skin of his torso. I slowly raised my hands, reaching up to push it off his shoulders. The material got bunched at his elbows, where the folded up cuffs caught at his skin. His presence was washing over me. I felt calm, happy. It was as if it were just the two of us alone in the world, and that was perfectly fine.

I pressed the washcloth against his chest. Cassie had only made a small mess of his front, but I felt it was only right to make sure he was clean and comfortable. I squeezed the washcloth, watched as little rivulets of water ran down his chest, watched as his nipples puckered at the sensation of delicate fingers of cool water tracing down his side. His lips were slightly parted, as rough and dry as ever, and I couldn’t take my eyes off them.

“Sam,” he said, his voice low and rough. And then I leaned forwards and kissed him.

His lips. Oh, his lips. They were warm against mine, softer than they had looked. Our faces so close together that my nose was full of the smell of him, like clean snow and cut grass. He made a small noise, almost a hum, and then his lips parted. His tongue pressed a confident line against my bottom lip, and I opened my own mouth to allow it access. I couldn’t tell you when my eyes had closed, when I had dropped the washcloth and tangled my hands in that open shirt as it hung off his body. But he was a good kisser. Oh god was he a good kisser. At the feel of one hand at my side, his fingers tangling in my t-shirt, that little symbol of need, I almost came undone. I moaned, I pressed my body against his and felt a complimentary harness against my thigh. For all that Others may not be ‘compatible’ with humans, it certainly felt like we had the same basic equipment.

I pulled away from the kiss, biting at his lips, sucking the lower one into my mouth and tugging at it with my teeth before licking at the top one. I was breathing heavily, could feel my pulse thudding in my veins. When I pulled back enough to look down at him, Castiel was considerably more composed, though his cheeks were flushed and his eyes were dark beneath lowered lids. His lips were swollen, and that was _my_ doing. His skin glowed. The smallest noises from his throat made the hair along my arms prickle. Behind his shoulders, shadows within the small bathroom shifted. He looked up at me lazily, his head tilted to one side, and the way light sat around him made it almost look like he was… Like he had…

“Are you an angel?” I asked. My voice was low and rough, and I could see his pupils dilate in response. He stared at my mouth as I spoke, looking as close to distracted as I’d ever seen him.

“My people,” he said, leaning up to kiss me again, not a deep, searing kiss like our first one, but still a forceful press of lips against lips, “have been called many things.” He kissed the corner of my mouth, my chin, along my jaw. At the hollow beneath my ear he paused. “Humans can be angels though,” he said thoughtfully. “A description of their countenance.” He paused to suck at the tender skin there. “Kind, peaceful.” His mouth meandered down along the line of my neck. He licked a wet, hot stripe against the jumping pulse in my throat. When he spoke, his breath whispered coolly across it, making me shudder. “ _Chaste_.”

I groaned, and pulled him flush against me, grinding my hips against his stomach, feeling the hardness of him against my thigh. Our mouths found one another as hands wandered, as we exchanged sharp breaths, small noises of pleasure and excitement. I yanked his shirt out of his slacks, pressed a hand against the cool flesh of his side and he made a decadent noise into my mouth, one that I swallowed down eagerly.

As I cupped him through his pants, groped and squeezed and pulled him still closer with my other hand, his own intelligent fingers were making quick work of my belt, getting the button of my jeans undone and my fly yanked down. His thumbs pressed at the indents below my hipbones, a ticklish feeling that somehow went straight to my dick, made me moan into his mouth and I heard him smile against me. Instinctively I raised my hand from his crotch, bent my forefinger and pressed the knuckle hard against the corresponding flesh below his stomach. He all but mewled into my mouth, a desperate noise from high in his throat that was so unlike any other sound I’d heard from him.

I plundered his mouth then, pressing my thumb against that spot with hard, demanding strokes, keeping him panting and desperate as my other hand copied his earlier movements and unfastened his pants. I slid my hand inside, curling my fingers around hard flesh. For the first time, I was touching a cock that wasn’t my own, and the experience thrilled me. He was long, already damp along the shaft, and the flesh was warm and exciting against my palm. Not to be outdone, he pulled my own cock free of the confines of my briefs and wrapped his hand around it. He gave it a firm stroke along its length, and I had to tear my mouth away from his. I buried my face in his hair, inhaled deeply the scent of him, the intoxication of his nature.

We stumbled a step until I had him pressed back against the little porcelain sink, bending him back over it with the weight of my body against his until he found his footing, straightened a little and all but held me up as his hand moved confidently over my cock, pausing to palm the head, exploring the ridge there and the sensitive little knot of nerves underneath. My mouth was open with pleasure, mouthing at his hair, his neat sideburns, the shell of his ear. Panting and whining and my own hand was nowhere near as skilled on his own cock, but what I lacked in finesse I must have made up for in enthusiasm, because he was still making those desperate noises, his forehead now pressed to my collarbone.

Every now and then I felt the graze of teeth as he bit mindlessly at my t-shirt, and each time it sent a pulse of want through me. I wanted to see his face. I wanted to see his body. I wanted him spread out over my bed. I wanted hours, no, _days_ to explore him, to experience him exploring me. I wanted mouths and hands and cocks in every act, in every position. I squeezed the head of his cock, so hard that it must have hurt but he groaned in approval. “ _Sam_ ,” he said, his voice thick and wrecked and desperate, and it was hard to believe he had ever been able to hide his emotions from me.

“Cas,” I panted in return. I dipped my head and licked a bead of sweat from the side of his face. I loved the taste. I loved the way his name felt on my tongue, the tricky syllables, the suggestion of a lost language in the rises and falls. “Castiel,” I breathed, and his mouth bit at my chest, a tight, almost painful noise escaping from his throat. His hand moved furiously along my cock and I was coming. The room went white and I was coming so hard my ears rung, so hard that every shift of air in the room felt like feathers against my skin.

And then the storm around me died down, and my forehead was pressed against Castiel’s, and our harsh panting was easing to slow, deep breaths. I could have breathed him in right then, inhaled him and held him with me forever inside my ribs. But eventually I had to open my eyes. Eventually I had to grab the washcloth again and dampen it with cool water. Eventually we had to wash each other off with tender hands, right our clothes with our faces flushed and our eyes always roving over one another’s bodies but never quite meeting.

“I hope this pays my debt,” Castiel said at last, his voice low and even. “For my ‘eyeful’ in your bedroom.”

For a moment I had a horrible fear that this had all just been part of some sick obligation to right a balance between him and me. And then he leaned forwards and raised up on his toes, and pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth. That coil of fear in me eased.

“You’re a really good kisser,” I said.

“I’ve spent enough time around humans to appreciate the act.”

“Have you…” I paused, trying to find the words for my question, wondering if I had any right to ask something so intimate, to ask if he had done this before. “Was I alright?” I asked instead, the cool air of reality slowly invading that warm, post-orgasmic glow. His thoughts were silent to me as always, and for the first time I wished I could read his mind.

He smiled at me, and the soft expression made his face look radiant, made him look so beautiful I ached. “You are amazing,” he said firmly, and then we kissed again, slow and gentle, comfortable with each other.

“They must be missing us,” I said, pulling his shirt right again. We had no obvious stains on us, and I even managed to button his shirt up right on the second try, something which amused the Other greatly. Well, greatly by his standards.

We stepped outside with a casual air, though my joints were loose and happy, and his hair was in greater disarray than usual. I had thought there were only small, secret indications of our tryst, but Ellen only had to glance over at us to know. I could read it loud and clear in her mind. A mixture of pride that I’d bagged myself a hot one, reluctance at his lack of humanity, and then a firm stamp of ‘not my business’ closing the matter for good.

Everyone else was occupied, talking to the new arrivals, discussing the strange change in the weather. Wind had picked up, and clouds were scuttling across the previously clear sky. The arrivals, to my surprise, were Ava, Andy, and Chuck (who was sneaking the odd glance at Ellen, and wishing he’d put nicer clothes on). Ava caught sight of me and came striding across the yard, her face blazing.

“We’ve been trying to reach you all afternoon!” she said.

I patted my pockets absently. “Sorry, I guess I left my mobile in my room.”

She caught sight of Castiel then, standing beside me and looking up at the sky with a small furrow between his brows. She stopped short, staring at him in horror, and then turned to glare at me. She took me in then, really took me in, and the glare turned to hurt. A look that Andy and Chuck mirrored in a heartbeat. Just one glance and apparently _everyone_ could tell what I’d been up to. And my private activities had apparently been a great betrayal to my friends. I could sense their emotions rolling around. They could feel my attachment to Castiel, and I could feel as they steadily stopped trusting me. It was like a drain of some physical fluid that had been in me, emptying out from my chest and running out over the ground between us.

“Chuck had a vision,” Andy said quietly. My friends and family were watching us, we had no privacy, but this was apparently too urgent for him to care. Chuck shuffled, beyond nervous in the presence of Castiel, who was still staring at the sky, apparently indifferent to the crowd of ‘abominations’ in his presence.

“It’s not precise,” Chuck said. “It never is with them. But it was big, and it was violent, and it was _now_.”

I looked around the yard, seeing nothing but a gathering of people, split pretty evenly between being worried and being curious. For a moment I thought that maybe he’d seen my intimate moment with Cas, but no, surely he’d be able to tell a good moment from a bad one? I opened my mouth to tell him that I had no idea what he was talking about, when Castiel reached out and took my hand. He squeezed it, and for a moment managed to tear his eyes away from the tangle of clouds above us.

“I’m sorry,” he said. Then he dropped my hand and walked away from me, towards the woods that bordered one side of Bobby’s yard. The wind was strong enough to make people unstable on their feet as it whipped around us. Chairs toppled over and collapsed into themselves. When Castiel was halfway across the lawn, lightning struck. Ava screamed and Dean swore as we were blinded by the flash of light.

When my eyes cleared, there was a man standing in front of Castiel. He was a solid wall of flesh, dark skin and a bald head. He looked like a boxer who had lost his tight lines over the years but none of his muscle. He had a sword in his hand, and Castiel bowed before him.


	9. Chapter 9

I was nearly knocked over by a strong gust of wind, one that would have knocked over the trestle table if Dean hadn’t grabbed it. A figure was standing beside me, and I was incredibly surprised to note that it was Mr Fox.

“Hey kiddo,” he said to me, then cupped his hands around his mouth to yell at Castiel and the Other he was kneeling before. “Hey!” he yelled, his voice cutting through the wind. “Yoo-hoo! Sorry I’m late!”

The formidable Other looked up and, to my surprise, he looked mildly exasperated. When he spoke, his voice was so deep that I swear I could feel it reverberating in my bones. “You should not be here,” he said, his voice carrying across the short distance without any difficulty.

“Bullcrap,” Mr Fox called back. “Now get your ass over here and eat a damn cookie.”

I saw the Other’s fingers flex around the hilt of his sword, and while I couldn’t read his mind it was easy enough to see that he was contemplating using the pointy end to shut Foxy up. But he touched Castiel gently on the shoulder, and the two of them came close to their loose audience. Several paces from Mr Fox, he stopped, and stuck his sword into Bobby’s straggly lawn. It stood proudly in its dusty surrounds, longer than Castiel’s, and there was a pattern carved into the hilt. His eyes travelled over the human faces watching him.

“Typically, this is a private moment,” he said in a low rumble.

“Pfft,” Foxy replied. “We came down from the attics for a reason.”

“Typically,” the Other said with a threatening delicacy, “ _you_ would not be present.”

Foxy clapped a hand on my shoulder, making me jump. “Hey, Toast-man,” he said cheerfully. “When were you born?”

“Uh, May second,” I said hesitantly. “Nineteen eighty-three.”

Foxy positively beamed at the Other. “See? He’s one of mine.” In a slightly more formal tone he added, “I am here to represent the interests of those under the care of my garrison.”

The Other who seemed to be in charge of the proceedings huffed out a breath through his nose, nostrils flaring. But he inclined his head slightly, and I gathered that was as explicit in stating his acceptance as he’d get. He turned to Castiel, and I was amazed at how much he dwarfed my Other. He put me in mind of a big, black bull. A wall of flesh that could not be moved.

“In the name of the offices of vengeance and repentance,-” this was not sounding promising, “-I bring to you the charge that you have slain a member of your kin.”

Castiel nodded his head once. “I have.”

“I also bring to you charges that you have committed violence against kin whom you had sworn to follow and obey.”

No nod this time. “I have.”

The Other rested his hand on the hilt of his sword. “What justification do you have for these crimes?” he asked in a voice like tamed thunder.

“I acted in my own defence, and that of those who have come to be under my protection,” Castiel said evenly.

“Your claims of unfounded orders are being investigated,” the Other said dismissively. “Your justification shall exclude any unsupported claims when it is delivered to his kin. You are found-”

“I can’t help but think,” Foxy said lazily by my side, “that these claims could very well be investigated here and now.” There was a long, awkward pause. The Other in his dark suit and incredible mass seemed exasperated by the interference.

“If he acted in the defence of some poor, little humans,” Foxy continued, around a mouthful of one of the cookies I had baked earlier in the week, “then that would mean that violence was ordered against them.” That line of logic seemed obvious to me, but it hung awkwardly in the air between the three Others.

“There has been denial of any such orders,” the Other in charge finally stated.

“What about half-humans?” someone asked, and I was startled to realise that it was me. “What about those who…” How had Cas put it? “Who straddle a boundary?” Cas looked a little proud of me at that moment, and Foxy outright beamed at me.

The Other looked at Castiel. It seemed like they were having a silent communication. Foxy stood on his tiptoes to whisper in my ear, “For a long time, their positions were reversed.” I considered that, how strange it would be to punish someone who had punished you. Then I wondered how on earth Cas could ever possibly wield any power over that formidable shape.

“No evidence will be found,” the Other said at last, but some of the formality was gone from his voice.

“And yet I followed those orders,” Castiel replied. “There is blood on my sword for them. I fought to defy them.”

“You have been accused of losing faith,” the Other countered. I wondered if maybe that word meant something different to the Others, it seemed to carry such meaning to them.

“But not my judgement,” Castiel returned. I glanced at Foxy, and saw him frowning. I got the impression that this was not the ideal response.

The third Other stared at Castiel for a long moment, sizing him up, then he reached out and laid his palm on the hilt of his sword. “You are convinced,” he said, and Castiel nodded. There was another pause, before the Other asked, “Would you bleed for this conviction?”

Castiel tilted his head to one side, giving this question careful thought. Finally, he nodded. Beside me, Foxy buried his face in his palm. How _very_ reassuring. Then, the stocky Other thumbed the buttons of his suit jacket undone and pulled his sword out of the ground with a smooth movement. Castiel strafed to one side, putting some difference between him and the law keeper. As he rounded in an arc I saw that his own sword was in his hand, though I had no idea where he had pulled it from.

“Just so you know,” Foxy said beside me, “this is not exactly typical.”

“Wait,” I said. “Nothing should be started on the seventh day, right?” I asked desperately. “You guys can’t start anything on a Sunday.”

“That’s true,” Foxy replied. “But the seventh is a great day for things to end.”

We watched as the two Others circled one another warily on the dry lawn, both crouching slightly, though Castiel seemed to have a little more flexibility in his joints. Bobby pretty much spoke for all of us humans (and mostly-humans) when he asked, “What the hell is going on?”

Foxy reached behind me and snagged another cookie out of the container on the table. “In a nutshell, the guy who looks like he was shagged in a barn stuck his neck out for the half-breeds here. Since he’s kind of been judged guilty for murder, it would be really convenient if he died in this fight. The big guy who looks like he wants to eat you? He’s kind of like the judge. The half-breed thing is not part of his job, it’s a whole heap of someone else’s problem. But since scrawny there is basing his whole defence on that little tangle, they’re going to fight to see if he’s telling the truth.”

Ellen was the one who broke the silence. “That sounds all kinds of dumb.”

Foxy shrugged. “We’re a little behind the times on some issues,” he admitted around a mouthful of chocolate chips and crisp cookie. “These are amazing, by the way,” he added.

“Thanks,” I said absently.

Castiel and the judge had not come to blows yet. Occasionally one would dart forwards in a bluff, testing their opponent’s defences. They were both being extremely cautious. This was nothing like the rough and tumble fight I’d witnessed behind The Roadhouse.

A fight that Castiel had only won with my intervention.

“Don’t even think about it, kid,” Foxy said beside me. “You would be dead before you moved a foot, and that would kind of defeat the purpose.”

“I hope he dies,” Ava said viscously from Foxy’s other side. “Let him find out how it feels to be stabbed.”

I was too caught up in watching the two figures on the lawn to feel any real emotion towards her words. “If he dies,” I said absently, “who’ll protect us from the next one?”

“Next one?”

“Hate to say it,” Foxy said, giving Ava a commiserating smile, “but you’re not exactly considered an asset by most.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Jo asked, echoing Bobby’s earlier question.

“We’ll explain later,” Bobby and Dean said in unison, then they exchanged a look. “Maybe you want to get going,” Dean said to Ellen.

“Maybe I want to stay right where I am,” Ellen countered. She had Andy tucked protectively behind her, and her chin raised stubbornly.

“You sure have some loyal friends,” Foxy observed. “Dumb, but loyal.”

The judge was darting forwards now, his incredible bulk moving swiftly across the lawn. His sword was a bright flash through the air, light stabs and swings that Castiel blocked with concentration. They were moving faster now, one arm outstretched for balance, their eyes on each other’s blades rather than their faces. The judge was advancing and Castiel was retreating.

In an unexpected move, the judge dropped his head and ran right at Castiel. It should have been an easy move to attack, but Castiel stepped to one side to avoid getting run down. The judge stopped suddenly, one foot outstretched to halt his skid and his sword swung through the air, a heavy two-armed swing that Castiel barely managed to block. As it was, he staggered under the force of the impact, and then the judge was on him.

A flurry of blows, and Castiel was barely able to defend himself. He managed to get his sword underneath the judge’s blade, and turned his whole body away in an effort to haul the sword up into the air, before twisting and getting a good kick to the judge’s ribs. The judge followed the arc of his sword, accepting the blow to his side and bringing the blade back down, nearly embedding it in Castiel’s thigh. He stumbled back, his arms spread wide to maintain his balance, and the judge reached out and fisted his hand in Castiel’s shirt. Castiel looked up at him with wide eyes, and then he was thrown several feet, his body landing against the corrugated iron side of Bobby’s workshop with enough force to make the panel at his back crumple.

“He could have killed him,” Andy observed.

“They’re old friends,” Foxy said by way of explanation. My heart sank. My Other had baulked at killing a human who meant nothing to him because she was associated with me in his mind. How could he kill someone he had a much longer, more significant tie to? Chuck had righted a folding chair, and was sitting in it with a beer in one hand, a familiar cloud of doom and gloom hanging over him.

The judge held off as Castiel got to his feet, a little clumsy from the impact but he shook his head as if to clear it, and straightened his shoulders. He was slower on his feet though, and I could see red seeping through his dress shirt at his right shoulder. That shirt was seeing a lot of fluids today.

Cas stumbled forwards, his sword arm hanging low. He made a desperate swipe that even I could see lacked control. The judge had his back to us, so I couldn’t see his face. But he paused, staring at Castiel who I could see was panting through bared teeth. I hoped that he would pause for all eternity, that this fight would never reach its conclusion. Then he lifted his sword with both hands, and with a long step forwards he sent the blade hurtling right at Castiel’s neck. At the last second, my Other ducked, spinning around with lightning speed and he brought both hands, and the hilt of his sword down on the judge’s back, knocking him to his knees. I was amazed at his sudden agility, and I realised that he’d been faking the extent of his injury.

Castiel pulled his arm back to deliver the execution blow, but he was standing on the wrong side of the judge’s body to deliver a clean stab, and the judge rolled to one side, throwing his weight against Castiel’s legs and making him stagger. The judge grabbed Castiel by the wrist and twisted it savagely. I heard a crack, and my heart sank to my knees. Castiel dropped the sword, and his hand hung awkwardly at the end of his arm. He pulled the wounded appendage close to his chest, and tried to reach for the sword with his left hand. The judge was guarding the weapon closely, and made calculated thrusts at Cas whenever he approached.

Castiel’s face was twisted with pain, and I had no doubt that there was no fakery in his wince this time. Without his sword, he couldn’t attack. Without a means to defend himself, it was only a matter of time until he tired enough for the judge to be able to justify putting him out of his misery. Desperation roiled inside me. I wasn’t ready for Castiel to leave town, let alone exit the land of the living. I’d had plans to spend time with him, a lot more time. I was furious. Furious at the Others for their stupid, medieval justice system. Furious at myself for my own impotence.

I felt Andy reach over from beside Ellen and grasp my hand. Ava followed suit, threading her arm behind Foxy with jerky movements and taking my free hand. Chuck looked up then, stared at the three of us. He closed his eyes, finished the beer with long, awkward swallows, and then hauled himself to his feet. He put a hand on Ava’s shoulder, and only then, with the desperation and fury of my three kin swirling through me, did I get it.

I had been trying to keep composed, aware that crying out or stepping forwards could mean the end of me. But now I let my feelings loose, I let myself feel scared and hurt and desperate and angry. Let it flow between us and coil around us, let it build and escalate, and as it did some emotions became stronger. Fear and anger. Those two desperate reactions to a need to stay alive. In front of us, Castiel was dodging small, testing attacks. He was wearing out. I could see on his face that he had accepted the inevitable.

“The sword,” I said, and with those two words it was like something in us overflowed, something desperate and primitive, a physical shockwave that was aimed out across the lawn. The judge turned, anger on his face at the interference, but his recognition didn’t matter. The energy had caught Castiel’s sword and kicked it over to him. He ducked down and scooped it up, holding it clumsily at first in his left hand, but then he flexed his fingers, adjusting his grip, and we were not the judge’s biggest concern.

He turned, intending to attack Castiel once again, but Castiel was quicker, bringing his sword up so the judge turned into his blade, scoring a deep cut to the judge’s upper arm. The man bellowed and the bottles of beer in the ice chest rattled, the noise was so loud. The judge crouched low, ready to spring, but Castiel kept his attention on that wound, slamming his good shoulder against it as the judge lunged forwards and Castiel ducked to one side. Turning as the judge staggered under the impact and driving the elbow of his right arm into the gash. The judge went down on one knee, and Castiel kicked at the wound with a furious strength, making the judge roar in pain. He kicked again, and the judge toppled to one side.

Castiel stood over him and scored a wound to the judge’s right wrist, causing fingers to spasm, and he used the tip of his own sword to flick the judge’s sword away. He planted one foot at the outside of each of the judge’s knees, and fell forwards, straddling the giant man. He put his mangled right hand on the judge’s shoulder, pinning him in place, and pulled his left arm back. The tip of his sword rested at the judge’s throat. Both men were panting, their eyes locked.

“I’m defeated,” the judge said, his voice sounding level even though his chest was heaving, even though he was in obvious pain. “Finish it.”

Castiel’s right shoulder spasmed under the pressure he was putting on it, and he pulled back, rising so his back was straight. He looked oddly dignified, covered in blood and sweat and dust. “Your life is an important one,” he said loudly and clearly. He moved his sword away. With a flick of his wrist, he had the blade angled back along his left arm, and he lifted it high. I didn’t understand what he was doing until he said, “You are in my debt.”

I tried to yell out, to step forwards and _stop him_ , but Mr Fox had thrown an arm across my chest and slapped a hand over my eyes. There was a light so bright it was like the sun had been brought down to consume the earth, and when it faded, everything was silent. Even my ragged breaths didn’t make a sound.

Castiel lay crumpled on the lawn. He’d fallen backwards; his sword had come loose and was lying on the ground, bright with blood once more. His eyes were closed. I thought it was awful that he looked so at peace.

The judge was pushing himself up off the ground with awkward movements. His sword was secreted about his person again with a grunt. He stuck Castiel’s sword into the ground before climbing to his feet, his solid frame obscuring the body of my… obscuring the body for a moment. When he was firmly on his feet he stooped down, grabbing Castiel by the wrists and hauling his torso off the ground. His head hung limply, lolling back between his shoulders and that was when I realised that he was dead. Undoubtedly dead. With another grunt, the Other managed to get his arm around Castiel’s stomach, and with a heave he was standing, Castiel thrown over his good shoulder in a fireman’s carry. He paused for a moment, finding his centre of balance, and then turned.

Andy had a hand on my elbow and he squeezed it, though I could feel that he was trying to calm his own fear more than mine. Foxy took a small step forwards, situating himself partially in front of me. This was a political move, I guessed. A statement that while Castiel had died, we were not unprotected. The judge yanked Castiel’s sword out of the ground and held it loosely in one hand. He moved forwards with heavy steps, and came to a stop about five feet from me. His gaze was steady, and his manner stoic.

“A life for a life,” he said in that low rumble of a voice. “His debt to you is repaid.” Not knowing what else to do, I nodded. “You are not accustomed to our ways,” he said bluntly. That was definitly true, so I nodded again. “I cannot guarantee your safety.” Then he turned, and walked past me to the side of Bobby’s house, and disappeared around the corner.

“Well,” Foxy said, breaking the stunned silence. “That went better than expected.”

Dean rounded on the Other, snapped out of his daze and furious at all those things he didn’t understand. He all but hauled Mr Fox right off his feet, growling right into his face the question of the day. “What the _hell_ is going on?”

It seemed pretty clear to me. We would live, for the moment. Amongst the yelling, and the hand waving, and the demands for answers, Chuck turned to me with his blue, baleful eyes. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said sincerely.

My legs couldn’t hold me up any more. I collapsed onto the hard dirt and sat with my legs sprawled, my head bowed. I started crying, and I didn’t stop for a long, long time.

~*~

As Bobby said later, as far as birthdays went it had certainly been memorable.

Ellen and Cassie had picked me up off the ground, escorted me inside to try to find the edges of my shock and grief in comfort. Cassie made me hot chocolate, moving awkwardly in a kitchen that she didn’t know, conscious that she would feel even more awkward sitting at a table with someone she barely knew, saying words she knew wouldn’t help. In contrast, Ellen was still and sedate, stroking my hair and looking at me with compassionate brown eyes. A wall in me broke, and I started shuddering, not even able to cry any more. She wrapped her arms around me and pulled my head to her shoulder. “It’s okay baby,” she said absently. “It’ll be okay.”

The worst thing was, she was right.

“He made the big guns aware that they can’t sweep you guys under the rug without a fuss,” Foxy told Chuck.

“It would be great,” Cassie said, her PDA out of her pocketbook and in her hand, “if you could tell me everything.”

“Don’t have the time, hot stuff,” Foxy had replied with a characteristic grin. “Besides, it’s not my story.” He disappeared shortly after, though no one saw him go. That seemed to be a common trick of theirs.

I stared down at the mug of hot chocolate in my hands. Andy sat beside me, and Ava beside him. Chuck squeezed my shoulder, before sitting at the foot of the table. Slowly, haltingly, I began to speak.

There weren’t enough chairs for everyone in the room. Dean leaned in the back doorframe, keeping watch over the backyard as if he were the guard dog. Jo had her hands in her pockets as she leaned against the kitchen sink, her eyes on the hall that lead to the rest of the house. Bobby sat in a chair pushed back from the table, looking down at his feet. Cassie sat opposite me, listening to me with wide eyes, recording my story with a handheld device.

None of the others spoke, but I could feel their words flowing through me. They told me their stories with small touches and pained looks, and I talked and talked until my voice was raw and creaky. And then I talked even more, recounting what little I had learned of the Others, how killing had sat so poorly with my Other in particular. The only details that I kept to myself were those private moments we’d shared upstairs, and his name. Those were mine, and mine alone.

“That’s incredible,” Cassie said when I’d finally finished. Her voice was soft, but I felt Andy flinch at the sudden sound.

“It’s unbelievable,” I said dully.

“People will believe it,” she said firmly, and then she reached out and turned off the recording device with a click. “But they don’t have to know everything.”

I nodded, and slumped back in my chair, feeling like I could sleep for a million years. Ash showed up then, carrying a pizza and a pack of Buzz Cola. “Hey dudes,” he said cheerfully. “What’d I miss?”

I looked up at him and gave him a weary smile. “You missed one hell of a party.”

~*~

I didn’t get to sleep for the million years I needed, but I did sleep until late the next day. Then I stayed up late trying to organise my thoughts. I fell asleep in the small hours of the morning, and slept even later the next day. I gave myself a stern talking to in those lonely hours that I spent in the kitchen, staring out across Bobby’s yard in the darkness.

The simple truth of it was that I hadn’t really known Castiel well enough to mourn him. I’d known him… three weeks? We’d had a handful of meaningful moments in that time. Given how old he was, my involvement in his life must have been as brief as a wink. I knew _nothing_ about him or his past. Just that he liked simple foods, that he didn’t like beer, and that he had been touched by the small gestures I had made towards him.

So, I told myself, get over it. Okay, so my first boyfriend (I didn’t know if he counted as that, but I certainly didn’t mind putting the label on him, at least in my head) had died horribly in front of me in some attempt to secure my safety. Surely the whole point of him dying for me was that he wanted me to live, right? And, in all honesty, I’d been in mourning twice before. Something deep down inside of me was thoroughly sick of feeling sad.

I wasn’t sleeping great, but I made an effort to be up in daylight hours. I worked with Bobby and Dean, replacing the damaged segments of the shed. I sat with my brother on the hood of his car, drinking cheap beer and eating Jo’s potato bake out of the pan.

“The article’s been submitted,” Dean said eventually.

“Good luck to her,” I replied.

“She’s kept everyone’s names out of it.” I read clearly in Dean’s mind that the editor wasn’t liking that, that he wanted to be able to double check everything and poke and pry.

“Tell her thanks,” I said.

“Will do.”

Ellen rang one afternoon and asked if I could cover a shift at the bar, just the three hours until close on a weeknight. I went in and did my job. Maybe my smile wasn’t the brightest, maybe I was still a little slow on my feet, but I knew from bitter experience that things would get easier.

You can imagine my distaste when, barely a week after I’d given up my creepy, emo, nocturnal living, I was woken in the middle of the night by my mobile buzzing on my dresser. I thumbed a button, and whined into the phone as a way of greeting.

“Sorry,” the voice on the other end said, if anything sounding just as tired as I had.

I blinked, struggling to place it. “Chuck?”

“Sorry,” he said again. “But I had a vision, and Ava’s been really firm about me telling people and stuff.”

I had myself propped up on one elbow, and I scrubbed a hand over my face. “Okay,” I said at last. “I’m listening.”

Chuck’s voice took on a slightly nobler inflection, as if he were reading some great prophecy to me. In fact, it did sound like he was reading off a sheet of paper. I guess he still just scribbled everything down after his dreams.

“You shall enter a hose where the dead become healed,” he said. “And a sword shall be bound before you.”

I stared blankly across my room for a moment. “This is one of your ‘vague intention’ dreams, isn’t it?” I said at last.

“I get what I get,” Chuck said apologetically. I mumbled my thanks and hung up on him. I lay in bed turning his vision over in my mind, but I could make no sense of it. I kind of appreciated his frustration now. There just wasn’t enough information there for me to prepare myself. But it was late, and my body was tired, and soon I fell into a deep sleep.

~*~

I was awoken mere hours later by my mobile ringing again. I grunted into the handset by way of greeting.

“Hello, caller,” a familiar male voice chirped. “You’re needed outside.”

I grunted again, and hung up on him. Eventually though, I hauled myself out of bed. I pulled on clean clothes automatically, and ran my fingers through my hair to untangle it as I padded downstairs. The Fox was lazing against the neat fencing of the back porch with a sucker in his mouth, and he smirked a little when he saw me. His permanent good mood kind of made me want to punch things.

“What do you want?” I asked flatly.

“Come on, kiddo,” he said, stepping off the porch and gesturing for me to follow. “I have something to show you.”

“Is it even safe for me to talk to you?” I asked. I was wary of any Others. I guess I’d just seen one person getting stabbed too many.

“I can guarantee it’ll only improve your day,” he said, talking around the sweet. “Come on, arms out. This’ll only take a minute.”

I let him arrange my arms like I was about to give someone a big bear hug. Then he took three steps back from me, judged the distance carefully, then threw himself forwards, tackling me at torso-height. I let out an ‘oof’ of surprise, a sound that got sucked up in a sudden wind and flash of light. Then we continued stumbling backwards, this time in a long, cream corridor.

“You can’t fault that landing,” he said with a grin. I just had time to peer around and spot a sign that must have said ‘Private Hospital’, though all but the first three letters of each word were cut off by a large, steel trolley stacked high with white linens, before he was pulling me into a supply closet and mostly closing the door. I heard footsteps approaching, and when he pressed a finger to my lips, I took the instruction very seriously. There were people approaching, but I couldn’t hear their thoughts. He’d somehow dragged me into a whole building filled with Others.

“What the hell are you doing?” I hissed when I heard footsteps retreating. “Where are we?”

“Look, kid,” he started impatiently, but I cut him off.

“My name’s Sam,” I said, sick of this ‘kid’ bullshit. Not even my big brother called me that.

He looked at me for a moment, his head cocked to one side but I couldn’t make out his expression in the almost completely dark closet. “I know,” he said at last, sounding a little reproachful. Then he turned back to the door, checking to see if the coast was clear. I heard him murmur my name to himself softly, as if testing it out.

“The thing is,” he said after another set of footsteps had passed, “you’re a part of our world now, whether you like it or not.” I opened my mouth to complain. I had every intention of keeping my head down, thank you very much. Foxy apparently sensed my complaint, because he raised a hand to silence me without even turning around. “If you’re part of our world,” he said slowly and meaningfully, “then there’s one question you need to know the answer to. The million dollar question.”

I kept my mouth shut, as even I could hear the footsteps in the hallway this time. A little girl’s voice was complaining. “I want to see my daddy, I want to _see_ him.”

“Not yet, Claire,” an adult replied impassively.

“But-”

“No.”

Foxy waited until they were past us, and then he wrenched opened the door, grabbed my wrist, and hauled me out into the corridor. We darted across, and he opened the door to the room opposite, shoving me inside. The door closed behind me with a firm click, and I could hear him rearranging himself outside, attempting a casual whistle.

I could only stare at the man on the bed, his bemused expression as he ran his fingertips over a cast that had been put over his right wrist, poking at the skin of his arm where the cast ended as if checking to see if it still had feeling. Then he lifted his hand and, in a motion that I had never seen in Castiel, he combed his hair flat with his fingers. He looked around the room then, and saw me hovering in the doorway. He smiled politely at me, and then as my image sunk in his brow furrowed, curious confusion.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” he replied. His gaze turned inwards for a moment, searching. “I’m Jimmy,” he said at last and he sounded nothing at all like Cas. “Do I know you?”

The innocent question brought to mind less than innocent images. I’d had this man’s mouth under mine, his cock in my hand. I had torn sounds from his throat that I simply didn’t believe that Jimmy could make. Even when Cas had been his most human, flushed and wanting and demanding, he had been completely unlike this person before me.

“Yeah,” I said at last. “Kind of.” His smile settled then, content for the moment with that small classification of my place in his life. He reached up to scratch at his neck, and I saw that there was a small piece of gauze there, help in place with medical tape. It seemed amazing that something so small could possibly be keeping his lifeblood in.

“What are you?” I asked. “Are you... human?”

He looked at me, his wide, blue eyes blinking as if he were startled at the question. “No,” he replied after some thought. “Are you?”

Something pushed against my waist, and I looked down to see a blonde girl dart around me and then scuttle over and climb up onto Jimmy’s bed. She had a picture in her hands, and he leaned closer to look at it. An easy, organic motion, and suddenly I couldn’t look anymore.

This was Claire. And Castiel, Jimmy, _whoever_ was her father.

I turned away, wanting nothing more than to be alone, to digest this turn of events. But Foxy was there beside me, his shoulders pressed to the wall and his legs crossed at the ankles, looking bored and a little expectant. “What does this mean?” I asked. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” I meant my Other, of course, and the Fox seemed to understand.

Foxy put his hands on my shoulders and stared deep into my eyes. His own butterscotch irises calmed me for some reason. I was momentarily lost trying to track all of the shades of gold and brown.

“There is so much that I can’t tell you, Sam,” he said. I opened my mouth to call bullshit on that, but he gave me a stern look. “I can’t tell you because I am young; only an elder can reveal these things to you.”

I swallowed, trying to compose myself. “You seem able to talk about most other things,” I said, a little sulkily.

“Yes,” he said, his voice intent, commanding me to pay close attention. “Because I have been young _many_ times.” I gaped at him, not understanding what he was saying.

The Fox let his hands drop from my shoulders. “Do you know how to pray?” he asked, and the sudden change of subject confused me. I nodded wordlessly. “Then pray for him.” He shrugged a shoulder, offering me a small smile. “Maybe our maker will hear you.”

It seemed to occur to him then that we were standing in the middle of a wide hallway having this conversation, and that perhaps that wasn’t his brightest idea. He grabbed my arm and suddenly I was whisked away, set down on Bobby’s lawn right where we had stood before and struggling to catch my breath. I thought about the man in the room, the man who had Castiel’s face, his body. And how completely and utterly Castiel had been removed from his features.

“Was any of that real?” I asked when I was sure we’d barely moved a few steps.

The Fox smirked up at me, an expression that was familiar on his face. “That’s a hard question to answer,” he said.

I felt dizzy, and confused, and still half asleep. I had to laugh though, when I realised that Chuck’s vision had been pretty much on the money.

~*~

I wish I could say that the following month passed as a blur, but it didn’t. Meeting Jimmy, knowing that there was something out there wearing Castiel’s face, it left me feeling disoriented and uncertain. The Fox had told me he would answer questions, but he’d just given me more to ponder, more time thinking about my Other and my loss. And that’s what my weeks were full of. Full of thinking, of awareness of my gaping ignorance.

I remember musing that I had already lost so much. My mother died in a terrible way, my father died before either of us had matured enough to know what to do with one another. Karen, who was a second mother to me, had wasted away slowly and sickly. And now Castiel. The first three deaths in my life had been represented by the question ‘why?’. Castiel’s death was more of a ‘what?’ kind of issue. In retrospect, maybe I just spent so much time thinking about Cas because I didn’t want to spend any time thinking about the Other who’d had a hand in making me, about the psychic-siblings I may have had roaming about.

I tried to keep my body as busy as my mind as summer wore on. I worked long hours at The Roadhouse, and at home I started clearing out the rooms Bobby and I had used for storing junk. I found some paint in the far shed and started repainting Bobby’s work shed, much to his disgust. Dean was eventually sent out to deal with me, but he just picked up a brush and covered the fine areas around benches and windows while I worked with the roller. We didn’t say anything, as was our norm in times of pain. But he was there, and I was grateful.

Not much had changed at work. Suspicions had been confirmed, but no real opinion changed of me. Ellen perhaps kept a closer eye on me now that she knew just what kind of trouble I could get in to. Jo looked at me a little longer, now that she had seen me as a sexual being, and I had to be extra careful to stay out of her head. Eventually she said, “It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to learn how to fight.”

So I did. I went to judo class with her at the community centre. Dean showed me how to use a gun and I paid attention this time. Bobby talked me through how to fight dirty, and Ellen chimed in with tricks that made even him avert his eyes. I spent more time running, started doing sit ups and push ups. Ash loaned me his Zumba DVD, though what he was doing with one in the first place remained baffling.

A million things to occupy a million hours. One foot in front of the other, and that was how the months passed. Summer peaked and receded. Familiar faces came home for the few weeks between their escapes to somewhere exciting and the start of the fall semester. Ava began planning the ‘back to school’ displays at the library, and we were able to smile at one another as we crossed paths. I was able to smile at a lot of people, though I could pick right out of their minds that I wasn’t terribly convincing.

As always, I was mourning lost opportunities. Castiel was the only person I’d met who had been able to give me answers about myself, my condition. He had been the only person I’d been able to truly be myself around, safe from the stray influences of foreign thoughts. He was one of a handful of people who cared about me, the only person who had honestly desired me. _Me_ , telepathy and other flaws be damned. He had been my first shared sexual experience. So many wonderful things to me, and I couldn’t ever find a way to pay him back. Never would, because he’d gone and died for me.

~*~

Jimmy came to the house one day, walking up the steps like he had some kind of appointment, knocking a cheerful rhythm against the doorframe. I eyed him warily as I opened the screen door. He didn’t look at all like Cas, not really. I was right – human eyes weren’t so blue. His hair was neat and flat, and while his clothes were rumpled it was merely the result of a long drive in a hot car. He smelled like soap, an aftershave that had some kind of citrus in it, and clean sweat.

I talked to him on the porch, as the house was hotter inside than out most days (neither Bobby nor I saw the point in running the air conditioner if the two of us were constantly coming and going), each of us armed with glasses of filtered water and ice. He was wearing a polo shirt and grey slacks, and everything about him looked so normal it became strange all over again. I picked up a mental signature from him, though it was a busy hum like an insect makes rather than decipherable thoughts. It was easy to keep out of that mess.

“So, what,” I started awkwardly as we sat down. “You’re in charge of that body now?”

“Pretty much,” Jimmy replied easily. “Until he comes back, if he does at all. I have some things for you,” he said, after a relieved sip of water. He had a briefcase, which he popped open. The cast was gone, but his right wrist looked pale and a little thinner than the left, so I guessed its removal had been recent.

“Castiel’s last log requested that this be bequeathed to you.” He handed me a piece of paper, which turned out to be a letter with a cheque at the bottom. I skimmed over it, not really understanding. And then the dollar value hit me.

“I can’t accept this,” I said.

Jimmy shrugged. “He sure doesn’t need it right now,” he said plainly. “It’s his fee, for the first assassinations against the nephilim.”

My mouth was suddenly very dry. “They get paid? To do these things?”

Jimmy nodded. “No one can live for free these days,” he said sagely.

“But,” I struggled to find the right words. “You’re…”

Jimmy smiled at me, an easy grin that was almost overbearing compared to the muted expressions I’d gotten used to seeing on that face. “I’ve got my own nest egg,” he assured me. “But I don’t get to enjoy it until the loose ends are tied up. So, take the money.”

I nodded dumbly. Jimmy fished around in the pockets of his briefcase, and came up with a small envelope, just big enough to fit a business card inside.

“One of the council asked me to give you this,” he said. “You understand the conventions of knowing a name? It’s been explained to you?” The envelope was still in his hands. Clearly he wasn’t going to hand this over until he was sure it was safe.

“Kind of,” I replied honestly. “I figure that their names have power, that’s why it’s rude to speak an Other’s name in public.”

Jimmy nodded. “Knowing a name gives you power over the bearer. Each has their own, unique title.” He leaned forwards. “Knowing a name entitles you to assistance. A name can be withdrawn, so it’s not something that you can abuse. But a name can also be handed down. You can pass it to someone else if they’re in danger, but the name will leave you then, and you will have forfeited your entitlement.”

I thought about that. It sounded heavy. “What kind of assistance?”

Jimmy shrugged one shoulder. “It can take any form. Money, labour, information.”

I held my hand out, and after a moment of hesitation, Jimmy pressed the envelope into my palm. It had a fox chasing its tail printed in the upper left corner. Three guesses who it was from. “Why has he given me this?

Jimmy’s answer was delayed as he gave in to the heat and drained his glass. “He thinks you’re worthy of it,” he said, and his tone suggested that maybe I was a little slow. I couldn’t think what I could have done to warrant such a symbol of debt from the Fox, unless he _really_ valued the entertainment of my calls. I tore the envelope open, my big hands clumsy with the small package. Inside was a single sheet of very, very thin paper, which had been folded many times. There was one line written on it, in slanted script.

 _They call me Gabriel._

I re-folded the paper, and tried to convince it to fit back into the envelope. Eventually I had to fold it an extra time and cram it in. Jimmy had politely looked away when I pulled out the note, and he remained looking away now. I looked at his car, a rental convertible, and saw the young girl from the hospital in the passenger seat. She was drinking a Big Quench and watching the swallows darting around between the wrecked cars. I wondered how she fit into this whole picture.

“This body thing-” I started, but I stopped when Jimmy’s face split into a wide grin. He seemed to be taking amusement in my awkwardness.

“You know what symbiosis is?” he asked, and I nodded. “Others can’t exist without something to walk around in. And there are definitely benefits to playing host to such a guest.” So, Castiel had been killed but Jimmy hadn’t.

“Don’t you feel… violated?” I asked. “He walked around in your body.”

Jimmy shrugged again. “I’m walking around in his right now. If you want to get into ownership, he was in control for more years than me.”

“Are you… were you always with him? You know, experiencing his experiences?”

“No,” Jimmy replied. “When he was in charge, I was elsewhere. Now that he’s gone, I guess I’m stuck with this world.”

I looked at Jimmy, unable to hide my ambivalence. I wanted to know so much more, but I also wanted him to stop speaking completely. He gave me a small ‘what can you do?’ smile. “It’s a good life,” he said simply. “And it pays for us outsiders to stick together.”

Jimmy had previously told me that he wasn’t human, but the way he said ‘us outsiders’ made me think that maybe there were a lot of people out there who weren’t exactly human. Even more people like me, perhaps. For once, I wished that I had been inside someone else’s brain. It would have been incredibly rude, but maybe I could have gotten the answers to those questions I couldn’t put words to.

The young girl leaned on the horn of the car then, one loud long beep that scared the birds away. Jimmy stood up, his briefcase in one hand, the other dusting at the back of one thigh. “Is she yours?” I blurted out. I had no right to ask, but I so desperately wanted to know.

“She’s hers,” Jimmy replied with a cheeky grin, and then he was stepping off Bobby’s front porch and out into the sunlight. I turned away before he reached the car. Although I heard him drive off, I didn’t see him again.

~*~

I did pray, as Gabriel had advised me to. I knelt on the floor of my room each night, sitting with my feet tucked under me, my fingers laced together and my head bowed. I didn’t know the formal words of a prayer, had always let those wash over me in church. But I knew how to want something, how to beg for something with all of my heart. Night after night, begging for Castiel, begging for there to be some kind of afterlife so that I might see him again, so that his existence would not be ended.

Despite my time in the hospital, I didn’t exactly believe Gabriel’s words. Had he meant that Others reincarnated? Jimmy had implied so, but he’d said it with such a bland tone of voice I wondered if he believed it. Their religion was so vague and meandering, he could have meant anything. I couldn’t find it within myself to believe his words, but I wanted them to be true. And I guess that want is the fuel for every prayer, a little stream of flame that lifts it to the heavens.

And then, without even noticing it, I stopped. It was the first week of September, a Monday, and a feeling of peace just settled over me. The Fox had hosted his last radio show the evening before.

“I can’t believe they gave you a contract that was so easy to get out of,” Richie had moaned. Apparently he and Pamela hadn’t been so lucky.

It was the first time I’d tuned in since Bobby’s birthday. I could hear the Fox crunching on some candies as he spoke, giving his voice a distracted air. “It was always suspected that I’d be given other responsibilities,” he said. “I can’t keep educating you monkeys forever.”

I’d nodded, and listened absently to the rest of the show. Sunday was a good day for things to end, I recalled. I wondered if the seasons played a role, too. It was autumn at last, and all signs suggested that it would be a cold winter.

That Monday was the first night I’d had to shut my window against the chill air, and my sleep was uneasy. I kept half-waking, feeling hot, feeling trapped without fresh air in my room. I heard unnerving skittering noises in my dreams, ones that followed through into the real world as I woke a final time. I was disoriented for a long moment, thinking I was still asleep because the noise was still there. I rolled over and faced my window. Something tapped against it, and then skittered down the pane of glass. I held my breath for a long moment, and then the sounds came again. Someone was throwing stones at my window.

I half-fell out of bed in my haste to get to the window, to yank it open. I stuck my head out, and could just make out the paleness of skin, the shape of forearms, the stretch of a grey t-shirt in the night. Hands latched on to the edge of the roof, and a figure hauled himself up, crawled over the tin to my window. I grabbed him by the shoulders, pulled him through the opening and he came easily, the two of us tumbling onto my floor. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, and though his feet were damp from the dew and his clothes were chilled from the night air, his skin felt fever-warm to touch. His body was whole, his skin glowed, and he was _alive_.

I stared at Castiel in disbelief, reaching out and cupping his face between my hands, feeling a thrill as the aura of an Other washed over me, filled me with energy, fed the emotions roiling inside me.

“You missed summer,” I said stupidly. It was the first thing that came to my mind, and it seemed important at the time.

“I missed you,” he replied simply. Then his lips were on mine, and everything was perfect.

~*~

It was a Monday when my life changed for the better.

The end.


End file.
